Safety Records Erased for 50 Near-Complete Buildings After Provider Collapses

The collapse of two building control providers has left the Building Safety Regulator (BSR) with 50 near-complete buildings and absolutely no compliance documentation. Not a single cavity barrier record. No smoke detector certificates. No evidence that fire-resistant walls were actually installed. Just buildings, almost ready for occupation, and a complete "blank slate" where the safety paper trail should be.

If this doesn't make you reconsider your documentation strategy and potential fallback plans, nothing will.

Understanding the Building Control Landscape

For those unfamiliar with how building control works in the UK, there are two routes to securing building regulations approval: Local Authority Building Control (LABC) or Private Building Control (now known as Registered Building Control Approvers or RBCAs).

Both routes must adhere to the same building regulations and ensure projects meet identical standards. Private inspectors offer flexibility and faster service, whilst local authorities bring deep knowledge of local conditions and have enforcement powers that private providers lack.

A critical difference emerged following the Building Safety Act 2022: private building control businesses must now carry professional indemnity insurance and are contractually appointed, theoretically providing additional protection should they fail to deliver their role properly.

But here's what the regulations don't protect you from: when your building control provider goes bust and takes every scrap of compliance evidence with them.

The Perfect Storm That Created This Crisis

Speaking before the House of Lords Industry and Regulators Committee, BSR Deputy Director of Operations Chris Griffin-McTiernan revealed the scale of the problem. The regulator faced what he called a "perfect storm" when two building control providers collapsed, transferring 50 partially completed projects with no accompanying documentation.

Think about what this means in practice. Buildings that had progressed through multiple construction stages, foundations laid, drainage installed, structural elements erected, fire protection systems supposedly fitted, with zero verifiable evidence that any of it complied with regulations.

When PWC Building Control Services Ltd collapsed in August 2024 after the BSR didn't renew its trading licence, it left more than 1,000 building control projects in limbo across Northamptonshire alone. The company had generated over £6 million in turnover in 2022 and employed more than 40 staff.

Why This Matters More Than Ever

The construction industry is haemorrhaging companies. Construction firms accounted for 15.2% of all insolvencies in England and Wales in July 2025, with 332 registered construction businesses becoming insolvent, a figure representing 3,973 construction insolvencies in the 12 months to July 2025.

And it's not just small subcontractors. Major firms are collapsing: Marbank owed nearly £10 million to its supply chain when it went under, Connect Modular made 60 staff redundant despite completing Scotland's largest modular affordable housing development just months earlier, and English Architectural Glazing collapsed owing over £24 million to creditors.

When a groundworks contractor or cladding firm goes bust, it's devastating for the supply chain. When a building control provider collapses, it creates a black hole in the safety verification system itself.

The BSR is already overwhelmed. Nearly 70% of applications are currently being rejected, with 40% invalid at the very first stage. The regulator is candid about falling short of its statutory 12-week decision timeframe, instead aiming for 30 weeks, a target they describe as "being realistic."

Now add 50 buildings that need a complete re-inspection from scratch. The delays compound. The costs escalate. And worst of all, the accountability vanishes into a corporate graveyard.

What Health and Safety Professionals in Construction Can Do to Protect Themselves

In my 35 years in health and safety, I've watched regulations evolve and tighten, usually in response to tragedy. The Building Safety Act 2022 emerged from Grenfell. These building control collapses are warning shots, not casualties yet, but they could be.

Here's what you need to implement immediately.

Maintain Parallel Documentation Systems

Never rely solely on your building control provider's records. Create and maintain your own comprehensive documentation:

• Photographic evidence at every critical stage: Foundations, drainage, structural elements, fire barriers, cavity installations, and insulation before they're concealed
• Copies of all compliance certificates: Material fire ratings, product certifications, test results
• Complete correspondence trails: All instructions, clarifications, and approvals exchanged with inspectors
• Competency records: Training certificates, qualifications, and competency assessments for every contractor and specialist who touched the project

If your building control provider disappears tomorrow, you need to be able to reconstruct the entire compliance narrative from your own archives.

Verify Financial Stability

Private building control providers must carry professional indemnity insurance, but that doesn't protect you if they simply cease trading.

Before appointing any building control provider, conduct due diligence:

• Review their latest filed accounts
• Check their insurance coverage and renewal dates
• Understand their parent company structure and financial backing
• Monitor trade press for warning signs of sector stress

Build Relationships with Local Authority Building Control

Even if you're using private building control, establish a relationship with your LABC. If your private inspector cannot continue their role for any reason, the project will be handed over to the local authority. Only the local authority has enforcement powers.

Understand their processes, their timelines, and their expectations now, before you're forced into a panicked handover with incomplete documentation.

Build Safety Competence Early

The regulatory literacy gap across the construction industry is stark. Health and safety professionals must be involved at the concept and design stage, not just at sign-off. This means developing a strong working knowledge of the Building Safety Act 2022 and collaborating with multidisciplinary teams to ensure joined-up approaches.

Your role is to drive a culture of completeness and quality. Educate clients and project teams on the cost of delays versus the value of getting applications right the first time. Make documentation excellence non-negotiable.

The Bigger Picture | A Broken System

These collapses raise uncomfortable questions about whether the privatisation of building control has created more risk than efficiency. In February 2024, the government was warned that a significant number of councils would stop offering building control services unless deadlines to prove professional competence were extended.

We're simultaneously losing LABC capacity whilst watching private providers collapse. The BSR is overwhelmed, operating with extended determination periods whilst battling an industry that struggles to submit compliant applications.

The answer isn't to abandon private building control or to romanticise local authority provision. Both have strengths. Both have weaknesses. The answer is to stop treating building control documentation as someone else's problem.

As health and safety professionals, we're the ones who understand that documentation isn't bureaucracy; it's the evidence that safety-critical work was done properly. When that evidence vanishes, we're left with buildings that might comply or might not, and no way to tell the difference without tearing them apart.

Taking Charge of What You Can Control

You cannot prevent building control providers from collapsing. You cannot force the BSR to meet its statutory timeframes. You cannot single-handedly fix the construction industry's insolvency crisis.

But you can control your documentation practices. You can control your due diligence processes. You can control how early you're involved in projects and how rigorously you verify compliance at every stage.

The 50 buildings sitting on the BSR's desk with no documentation are a warning. They're not your buildings yet. But unless you take action now, unless you build redundancy into your verification systems and create documentary evidence that survives corporate collapse, the next "blank slate" crisis could involve your project.

This isn't about compliance for compliance's sake. It's about having evidence that fire barriers were installed, that structural elements meet their design specifications, and that smoke detection systems were commissioned properly. When the building control provider is gone and the regulator comes asking questions, your documentation becomes the only thing standing between project completion and catastrophic re-work.

The lesson from these collapses is clear: in building safety, trust is good, but verification that you control is better.

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