Current status: Answered by Kevin Stewart on 12 December 2016
To ask the Scottish Government what assessment it has made of the impact of delays in obtaining building control consent on (a) the industry and (b) its housing targets.
Scottish Government has not made such an assessment but knows that delays may be due to local authority processing, the quality of the submitted plans, or delays in applicants submitted revised details. We are aware that Local Authority Building Standards Scotland who represent local authority building standards services in Scotland have examined this issue and provided the following information:
More than 330 housing development applications were submitted immediately before the October 2015 change in energy standards. As of 1 Dec 2017, 41% of these applications remain unapproved and are sitting with the housebuilder for action.
For the time taken to gain approval for housing applications, the verifier typically works on the application for 30% of the time; the remaining 70% of the time is down to the housebuilder producing essential information to allow approval.