This year I’ve had two pieces of casework highlighting huge delays in getting building certificates at the completion of building work.

I’ve personally also had delays last year making me extra wary their might be an issue.

A formal response to a question I posed at full council assembly shows me that a very real problem does exist that no administration has been able to resolve – largely I suspect this service has never been picked up on any radar as failing.

For example this financial year 512 building certificates have been issued with the average certificate issued 42 days from the last officer visit. That in itself is huge delay. BUT the worst quartile had an average of 283 days delay for the certificate to be issued from the last visit. That’s 2/3rds of a year to get an A4 peice of paper – outrageous.

Just 37% of certificates were issued within the target 10 days.

I’ve followed up this question and spoken to the Labour councillor responsible Fiona Colley and hope to work with her to see a turn around of this service.

If you have any problems with this service please contact me so I can help.

For more background data see: http://jamesbarber.mycouncillor.org.uk/files/2010/12/building-certificates.pdf