THE TIME FOR COMPLAINING HAS PASSED

Seven months after the implementation of the updated Building Regulations, which have seen lower minimum U-Values and mandatory trickle vents to all windows, I am still seeing plenty of complaints and anger towards the new rules.

Whilst I can understand people’s frustration with the new regulations, I’m afraid I have to be blunt and say that the time for complaining and calling for action has long gone.

The truth of the matter is that any failure to influence the Government is on us. You are a product of your own environment, as the saying goes, and our industry is certainly guilty of inertia when it comes to engaging with authorities on new rules.

No collective voice

I was recently told that during the consultation period before the Government made their final decisions on the new regulations, about 85% of the respondents to that consultation were social housing companies and others similar to that. Only a fraction of those who responded was from our industry.

What do we expect to happen if we as a sector are unable to collect ourselves in significant numbers to coalesce behind a single position and communicate that to the Government?

With such poor engagement in the consultation, we appear to the Government that we simply cannot be bothered.

Our industry, as is always the case with these things, buried its head in the sand and hoped that someone else would do the work. Installers hoped their fabricators would respond. Fabricators hoped systems companies would respond. Turns out barely any of us bothered at all.

If we did not take part in the process, then we cannot complain about the end results. It’s like any vote or election in politics. If you did not vote or did not take part, then you can’t complain. It makes those complaints hollow.

We already know that the impression the Government has of our sector is very poor. The longer we continue to moan about something which we did not engage with properly, the longer it will continue to look like we’re throwing the toys out of the pram and not taking ourselves seriously.

I’ll be frank, it no longer matters whether you think the rules are right or not. There is no prospect of these new rules being revised or changed any time soon. We can kick and stomp all we want. It won’t have any influence.

Jason Grafton-Holt