IN Brief:
- The Building Safety Levy comes into operation in England on 1 October 2026.
- Building notices are outside the levy, but existing regulations already require full plans for specified categories of work.
- Government expects a September increase in building-control submissions while a wider procedural consultation remains unresolved.
Government has issued fresh building-control guidance ahead of the Building Safety Levy coming into operation on 1 October, clarifying how existing application routes interact with the new charge and warning councils to prepare for heavier submission volumes during September.
The guidance is directed at local authorities and registered building control approvers in England. It does not yet introduce the wider procedural changes proposed in a recent consultation, but restates the situations in which work must already use an application for building control approval with full plans rather than a building notice.
The Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government has confirmed that the Building Safety Levy does not apply to building notices given to local authorities under regulation 12 of the Building Regulations 2010.
That distinction is one reason the department has separately proposed requiring all new dwellings using the local-authority building-control route to use applications with full plans under regulation 14. The consultation has closed, but the final government response has not yet been published and any resulting regulatory change will not take effect before the levy starts.
The September letter therefore concentrates on rules already in force. Applications with full plans are currently required for work involving premises covered by the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005, for certain work erecting a building fronting onto a private street, and where the Building Regulations provision concerning building over sewers applies.
The private-street requirement is particularly relevant to residential development because new homes can front roads that meet the statutory definition before adoption. Where a building notice is used, the required site plan must show the width and position of streets so the local authority can determine whether the notice is valid or whether a full-plans application is required instead.
The guidance also restates duties under the Advance Payments Code in the Highways Act 1980. Where that code applies outside Greater London, local authorities must notify the relevant street works authority within one week of granting a qualifying application for building control approval.
Initial notices submitted through registered building control approvers also interact with those highway provisions. For the purposes of the Advance Payments Code, certain notices involving buildings fronting a private street are treated as applications with full plans, while prescribed documentation must include a plan showing the site boundaries and location.
The procedural detail has become more important because the levy begins on 1 October. Developers have already been reviewing technical-design and building-control programmes ahead of the start date, and MHCLG says it expects a surge in initial notices and applications during September.
The department acknowledges that the additional volume may place pressure on local authorities and has asked councils to report novel procedural problems arising from unusually high numbers of submissions. Building-control teams will therefore be processing a concentrated workload while also checking whether each application route is legally valid.
For developers, the distinction between a building notice and an application with full plans cannot be treated simply as a way to choose whether the levy applies. The existing Building Regulations already prescribe circumstances in which full plans are mandatory, and an invalid notice does not become effective merely because it was submitted before the commencement date.
That puts more weight on the technical and legal status of each project. Street adoption, sewer interfaces, Fire Safety Order coverage, building type, and the chosen building-control route can all affect the documentation required before work proceeds, while the levy adds a new financial consequence to the timing of certain residential submissions.
The wider proposal to remove the building-notice route for all new dwellings using local-authority control would simplify one part of that landscape but has not yet taken effect. Until the government responds to the consultation and amends the regulations, building-control bodies and applicants still have to work within the existing mix of notices and full-plans applications.
The letter also reminds authorities of a separate procedural change affecting dangerous buildings. Applications under section 77(1) of the Building Act 1984 in England should now be made to the First-tier Tribunal (Property Chamber), rather than a magistrates’ court, following changes made by the Building Safety Act 2022.
The guidance arrives during a wider period of regulatory change for residential construction. Building-control approval, higher-risk building procedures, the Building Safety Levy, planning, and technical design are increasingly interdependent, so a delay or error in one part of the pre-construction process can alter cost and programme assumptions elsewhere.
October will not settle that system. The levy will be in force, but the consultation on mandatory full plans for new dwellings still requires a government response, and local authorities will have to absorb the immediate increase in submissions before any further procedural reform takes effect.
For schemes being prepared now, the immediate position is narrower and more practical: existing full-plans requirements remain enforceable, building notices are outside the levy only where they are a lawful route for the work concerned, and local authorities are preparing for a final September concentration of applications before the new charge begins.
