You may begin work at any time after you have submitted a Full Plans application or Building Notice provided you give at least 2 days notice in writing.

The person carrying out building work (yourself or your builder) must tell us when you have completed the following stages (where appropriate), so that we can inspect the work.

• Commencement - 2 days
• Excavation - 1 day
• Concrete in foundations - 1 day
• Damp-proof course - 1 day
• Concrete oversite - 1 day
• Drains inspection and test - 1 day
• Drains covered/test - Within 5 days
• Occupation of building - 5 days before occupation
• Final completion - Within 5 days

Work may be shown on building plans to be in accordance with the Building Regulations but it is the work on-site, which frequently departs from the deposited approval plan, that is required to be in conformity with the Building Regulations.

Because of this, we place great emphasis on the inspection process and our customer commitment is based on carrying out all statutory inspections.

E.g. the foundations, damp proof courses, drainage inspections, oversite constructions and completion inspections etc., and in addition to that we also undertake to carry out additional non-statutory visits at the various stages of work, whenever possible.

If you are a developer, we believe that it is in your interest that first class inspections of your property take place to ensure that any faults found are corrected at that time rather than costly problems occurring later with possible litigation.

If you are a building owner, we also believe that we are acting in your interest to ensure that you do not inherit any problems by way of major defects becoming apparent later.

Where a Full Plans application has been deposited and the building works have been carried out in a satisfactory manner, a Completion Certificate is available upon request. We believe our response times are second to none, and because we have a good communication system, we are fully responsive to the needs of our customers.

We regard this service as probably the most important that we undertake and, of a consequence, if you feel that our performance is less than it should be our Chief Building Surveyor would be pleased to hear from you.