More DEAs for London and commercial EPCs
Graham Brick has kindly updated members of the HomeInspectionForum (HIF) on the latest utterings of Govt, as conveyed to attendees at this week's SAVA conference.
Here are the quick highlights:
Adequate regional distribution of DEA's
According to a Civil Servant in attendance, the Minister is apparently still not satisfied there are enough DEAs to serve London.
With 407 accredited DEAs already in London (according to the last DEA numbers update (16 Oct 2007)), I'm puzzled as to how many more would be satisfactory. I mean, there are only 277 for the whole of Wales!
Impact of HIPs on "the market in general"
(AKA: "Lessons learnt")
On this, the Govt is concerned about the "credit crunch" - 'Nuff said on that already.
Commercial Property
Commercial EPCs will be rolled-out in (presumably) 3-stages beginning with commercial premises over 10,000 sq metres.
There are three bands which Graham has described thus:
- Band 3: local small shops akin to residential property and 2500 sq metres and under.
- Band 4: commercial property over 2500 sq metres and purpose built offices.
- Band 5: 10,000 sq metres and over.
All commercial properties will fall under the requirement by October 2008.
He goes on to add:
There are lots of variations and idiosynchratic differences which apply to commercial property but the "jist" of it is most DEA's are virtually qualified for band 3 already and to qualify for band 4 we will soon be offered training courses and modules as "bolt on" to our existing qualification.
General feedback on the SAVA conference itself? Good; "Money well-spent".
So well done to everyone at SAVA for keeping the "show on the road", despite the current climate.
You can read all of what Graham (and others) have written at HIF here: SAVA Conference Day 2.
Tags: sava, government, commercial-epc, dea-numbers
