THE BUILDING SAFETY LEVY: Have you factored it into your project?

From 1 October 2026, the new Building Safety Levy will be charged on construction projects (subject to exclusions) containing residential accommodation, which could easily affect projects at the planning and design stages right now. Watch Shane’s video above to get the lowdown, but here are the key points that we know. *

WHY?
The Building Safety Levy is part of the Government’s plan to accelerate the pace of remediation to buildings affected by safety issues brought to light after the Grenfell Tower Inquiry. The Government says that it is essential to protect leaseholders from remediation costs and has set a target of raising £3.4 billion over approximately 10 years.

THE NEW BUILDING CONTROL PROFESSION - Who is training the next generation of Registered Building Inspectors?

We talked to Zoe Cox PCABE, IEng, FCABE, FHEA, Grad IOSH, MSc, PGCE, BSc, BA, SOCOTEC’s Technical Training Director, about the support and guidance offered to both trainees and experienced professionals at SOCOTEC Building Control.

What’s your role at SOCOTEC?
I'm the Technical Training Director for the Building and Real Estate division of SOCOTEC. I am also a Registered Building Inspector at Class 3H/4. It's my role to recruit, develop and bring on all of our technical staff.

So, with apprentices and trainees, I develop their training programme, help them to develop as individuals, and take them on their journey to becoming a Registered Building Inspector.

I'm also responsible for the ongoing training and upskilling of our existing RBIs if they want to achieve registration at a higher Class level.

At SOCOTEC Building Control, we're very keen to bring in as many people as we can to address the shortfall of Building Control professionals, because at the end of the day, we need to support the construction industry and help get compliant buildings built.

PART G - WATER SHORTAGES AHEAD? Have your say

Water is rarely out of the news these days; the lack of it falling from the sky, the quality of it in our rivers and seas. Now the Government has launched a Part G consultation aimed at heading off a water shortage by reducing the demand from new housing. The Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs says:

‘A failure to implement water demand management measures in response to water scarcity could result in over 61,000 houses not being built costing the economy £25 billion this parliamentary term. Increasing the water efficiency of housing offers opportunities to reduce the risk of planning constraints on new developments due to water scarcity risks...

BUILDING SAFETY REGULATOR - The new Innovation Unit and a commitment to clear legacy projects

The BSR has acknowledged capability shortcomings under its previous Multi-Disciplinary Team strategy for addressing HRBs and has issued an update on the progress of its new Innovation Unit:

‘The newly established Innovation Unit (IU), a dedicated centralised resource, is now managing 27 new build applications (6,192 housing units). The IU is already demonstrating progress, with the majority of applications currently meeting or exceeding the 12-week service level agreement (SLA) for processing applications...

MOVERS & SHAKERS - Who's who at the top

On 30 September, a new interim Chief Construction Adviser was appointed by the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government.

Thouria Istephan, an architect with extensive industry experience and knowledge of building safety standards, has been appointed to provide expert, independent advice to ministers and Government on building safety and regulatory reform.

Thouria will play a central role helping to shape the future of the built environment sector, ensuring that safety, delivery and accountability are central to decision-making, with residents’ voices at heart. Her appointment marks a key milestone, fulfilling the Government’s response to the Grenfell Tower Inquiry Phase 2 recommendations.

NEW TOWNS: First three locations identified

At the end of September, the Government confirmed it will progress work on the next generation of new towns across England, following publication of an independent report that recommends 12 locations as potential new towns.

The Government is determined to begin building in at least three new towns in this Parliament stage, with sites at Tempsford, Crews Hill and Leeds South Bank looking the most promising.

The New Towns Taskforce, led by Sir Michael Lyons, has recommended that a mixture of large-scale communities, including urban extensions, urban regeneration, and standalone greenfield sites, should be built.

Not just a lot of hot air

Adventurous Vents: A Journey through the Ventilation Shafts of Britain Hardcover – 2 October 2025

by Lucy Lavers, Judy Ovens , Suzanna Prizeman

At the heart of the modern world lie ventilation shafts. We may not notice them, but wherever there are tunnels, sewers, mines, car parks and energy stations under our feet, vents will be doing vital work keeping them cool and fume-free.

Here are one hundred of the most interesting ventilation shafts, dotted around Britain, sometimes in the most surprising places. You'll find them masquerading as sculptures and small buildings, adorned with fine details or displaying their purpose with confidence.

Whether you're inspired to take off in search of them, or just to admire them from your armchair, vents are fabulous objects. By putting them – perhaps for the very first time – centre-stage, Adventurous Vents celebrates a highly unusual but exciting architectural form.

Published Hardcover – 2 October 2025

From around £16

Just weird

Weird Buildings, published by Hoxton Mini Press, is a photographic collection exploring some of the world's most stunningly strange and imaginative buildings, from terracotta-pink bubble palaces in the south of France to mind-bendingly warped houses in Poland and buildings shaped like dogs, shoes and picnic baskets. Taking in private homes and national libraries, towering churches inspired by mountains and glaciers and architectural marvels from Bilbao to Beijing, these buildings are united by their adventurous spirit and mould-breaking ethos.

Published Hardcover – 24 July 2025

From around £16.50

Knock knock

Doors of London, Styles, Stories, Art & Architecture by Cath Harries & Melanie Backe-Hansen.

From the grandeur of Belgravia to the bohemian buzz of Camden, from the Norman Tower of London to the contemporary street art of Tower Hamlets, Doors of London introduces you to every part of inner London. It whisks you through the styles: Norman, Medieval, Tudor and Stuart, Queen Anne, Georgian, Victorian, Edwardian, Art Nouveau and Art Deco.

The authors have researched the stories behind the doors, revealing where Dr Johnson wrote his Dictionary, where Oscar Wilde was arrested, where Mrs Simpson visited the Prince of Wales or where the Special Operations Executive plotted during the Second World War.

Thematic essays focus on street art, doors in film and television and authors’ homes, while special features home in on fanlights, letterboxes, knobs and knockers, foot scrapers and other door furniture.

Feature Doors tell the stories of the writers, actors, architects, collectors, socialites, bon viveurs and other famous or idiosyncratic owners who lived behind them.

Published November 2024

From £25.00

Visionary houses

The Manifesto House - Buildings that Changed the Future of Architecture by Owen Hopkins. Manifesto houses reflect new visions for how we can live. Often extreme and uncompromising, they are vehicles for innovation, new ideas, and new ways of doing things.

Most houses are the product of multiple layers of norms and expectations built up over time, whether methods, materials, and technologies or social, cultural, economic, and political pressures. Yet at various moments, houses have been built that break with the past and do something different; houses that stand outside of these expectations and instead are conceived to embody whole new theories or agendas. We call these “manifesto houses.”

For the first time, this compelling thread in the history of architecture is surveyed by Owen Hopkins. He brings together a collection of twenty-one such manifesto houses, exploring the visions for architecture conjured by Andrea Palladio, Eileen Gray, Frank Lloyd Wright, Harry Seidler, Lina Bo Bardi, Anupama Kundoo, and Sou Fujimoto, among others. The Manifesto House looks in detail at the ideas and ambitions embodied in each house, the contexts that shaped them, and their impact and influence on the future of architecture.

Published May 2025

From £30