Chief Executive’s Blog: Don’t Delay Part L Implementation

The Home Builders’ Federation is lobbying CLG to delay the implementation of the new Part L in October on the grounds that the industry needs more time to prepare for it.  The Department’s official position is that the implementation date remains firm. However, the Construction Products Association thought it was worth a quick straw poll of its trade association members last Friday to see if the arguments for delay had wider support. There wasn’t time to organise a full consultation of all members, and I don’t think that was really the point.  So we asked Ian Purkis as President, Keith Clark as lead member for technical issues and Cliff Thrumble as lead member for windows how they thought the BWF should respond.  They all agreed: too much work has already gone in to preparing for the new Part L, and to postpone it now would delay the ability to recoup that cost and throw confusion into the bargain.  Furthermore, they thought that those who had not yet addressed the issue would be as likely as not to put the whole thing off for a further six months, rather than using the extra time to catch up. It wasn’t necessarily the answer I’d expected, but it makes sense.  As an organisation, the BWF is geared up to supporting members in the run-up to 1 October.  We wouldn’t be any more prepared, do anything different, or add to what we can offer in six months’ time. The survey was due to close first thing this morning.  I’ll let you know the result when we have it.