Chief Executive’s Blog: The Burden of Regulation

If you’re feeling worn down by the burden of the first week of working to the new Part L regulations, you might wonder what progress has been made over the centuries. A speaker at a conference I attended yesterday reminded his audience that the first recorded building regulation is contained in the Code of the ancient Babylonian king, Hammurabi: “If a builder builds a house for someone, and does not construct it properly, and the house which he built falls in and kills its owner, then the builder shall be put to death.” Short, straightforward and to the point (of a sword).  There’s obviously a trade-off between the complexity of the regulation and the severity of the punishment.  You might want to think about that next time before you complain too loudly about the burden of red tape.