The review will include an objective to "deliver a mechanism, legislative or otherwise to ensure that local authorities cannot layer on any additional rules and standards through the planning system, beyond those left at the end of the review".
The review has been launched as a measure to rationalise "the entire framework of building regulations and national and local housing standards", with the aim of cutting back on the number of regulations, reports said. It will include an option of giving the building industry more scope for self-regulation.
The review group comprises a four-man panel which will review existing regulations and recommend ways to cut the amount of regulations to "deliver demonstrable deregulation to make housebuilding easier".
"The Government is determined to support developers and councils to get on with the job of building the high-quality new homes the country needs," said a DCLG spokesman according to reports. "The current system of overlapping different standards is complex and confusing to local residents and developers. This will make way for a simpler set of housing standards that ensure buildings are still made to exacting standards."
"Housebuilders have not been calling for a bonfire of building regulations," said UK Green Building CEO Paul King in a statement. "What they really need is mortgage finance and institutional investment to get the industry moving and policy clarity to deliver the homes we urgently need."
"This new upheaval, following hot on the heels of the biggest shake up of the planning system in living memory, instead creates a fog of uncertainty, and is much more likely to act as a brake on housing delivery, than an accelerator,” King said.
The review panel is expected to report its recommendations to the Government in the spring 2013.
