Building safety regulation in Wales changed significantly on 1 July 2026, introducing new responsibilities for clients, designers and contractors as well as a much more tightly controlled building control process for higher-risk buildings.
For anyone commissioning, designing or carrying out building work in Wales, the changes place greater emphasis on competence, clearly defined responsibilities and being able to demonstrate Building Regulations compliance throughout a project.
Although these changes are commonly discussed in relation to the Building Safety Act 2022, it is important to understand exactly what happened on 1 July 2026.
The Building Safety Act itself is UK legislation that has been implemented differently across England and Wales. The changes introduced in Wales on 1 July come primarily through:
The Building (Higher-Risk Buildings Procedures) (Wales) Regulations 2025
and
The Building etc. (Amendment) (No. 2) (Wales) Regulations 2025
Both the above implement further parts of the Building Safety Act 2022 and also amend the existing Building Regulations framework in Wales.
So, what has changed and what do clients, developers, designers and contractors need to do differently?
What changed on 1 July 2026?
The changes affect the way building work is designed, managed, approved and recorded.
Some of the most important changes include:
These changes form part of a wider programme intended to strengthen accountability and improve the management of Building Regulations compliance throughout the design and construction process.
Do the changes only apply to higher-risk buildings?
No, and this is an important distinction because much of the discussion around the Building Safety Act has understandably focused on taller and higher-risk residential buildings.
The new dutyholder and competence requirements apply more widely to controlled building work, not simply to projects involving higher-risk buildings.
Higher-risk projects are then subject to additional requirements, including the new approval gateways, change control procedures, golden thread and mandatory occurrence reporting.
In other words, a project does not need to be a high-rise residential development for clients, designers and contractors to have new responsibilities.
Enforcement Authority: Unlike England’s central Building Safety Regulator, Wales assigns oversight and building control enforcement for higher-risk buildings directly to local authorities and fire and rescue services acting jointly.
Building Scope: The Welsh occupation regime applies to all multi-occupied residential buildings containing two or more units via a three-tiered category system, whereas England’s regime focuses more narrowly on high-rise higher-risk buildings.
For the purposes of the new design and construction regime, a higher-risk building is generally one that is either at least 18 metres high or has at least seven storeys and contains at least one residential unit or is a hospital, care home or children’s home.
Certain types of buildings are excluded, including hotels, secure residential institutions and military barracks or other Ministry of Defence accommodation.
Higher-risk building work can include constructing a new higher-risk building as well as carrying out work to an existing building that already meets the definition. It can also include work that causes an existing building to become, or stop being, a higher-risk building.
This makes establishing the status of the building early particularly important on conversion, extension and change-of-use projects.
One of the most significant changes is the introduction of clearly defined dutyholder roles under the Building Regulations.
The principle is straightforward: everyone involved in commissioning, designing or carrying out building work needs to understand what they are responsible for and have the right skills, knowledge and experience for the work they undertake.
For most projects, the main dutyholders are the Client, Principal Designer and Principal Contractor, alongside individual designers and contractors.
The Client has an important role in setting the project up correctly from the outset. This includes making suitable arrangements for the work to comply with the Building Regulations and appointing competent people to carry out key roles.
Where more than one designer or contractor is involved, or it is reasonably foreseeable that there will be more than one, the Client will generally need to appoint a Principal Designer and Principal Contractor in writing.
For clients, this means appointments should not simply be based on availability or price. They need to be satisfied that the people taking responsibility for the work have the necessary competence and organisational capability.
The Principal Designer takes the lead on Building Regulations compliance during the design phase.
Their role is not simply to produce or review drawings. They need to plan, manage, monitor and coordinate the design work and take reasonable steps to ensure that the design, if built, will comply with the relevant Building Regulations.
On projects involving several consultants, this becomes particularly important. Architectural, structural, fire, mechanical and electrical information can all affect compliance, so someone needs to maintain an overview of how those different elements work together.
It is also worth distinguishing this role from the CDM Principal Designer.
The roles under the Building Regulations and the Construction (Design and Management) Regulations 2015 have different purposes and competence requirements. The same organisation can undertake both roles where appropriately competent, but the appointments should not simply be assumed to be interchangeable.
Once work moves onto site, the Principal Contractor takes the lead in managing Building Regulations compliance during construction.
In practical terms, this means planning, managing and monitoring the building work and taking reasonable steps to ensure that it complies with the relevant Building Regulations.
They also need to work closely with the Principal Designer where design questions or changes arise during construction. If something needs to change, it should be properly reviewed rather than simply resolved on site without considering the wider compliance implications.
Higher-risk buildings are subject to a more tightly controlled process than other building projects.
Rather than Building Regulations approval being treated as a stage to pass before construction begins, compliance needs to be actively managed throughout design and construction.
Before higher-risk building work starts, formal building control approval must be obtained from the relevant building control authority. The application needs to include detailed plans and information about how compliance, competence, changes and building safety risks will be managed during the project.
This stage is commonly known as Gateway 2.
For clients and design teams, this means achieving a greater level of design certainty before construction begins. Starting work while significant elements remain unresolved can create problems later, particularly where changes affect fire safety, structure or other important aspects of the approved design.
The emphasis is on demonstrating that the building has been properly considered before construction starts and then maintaining that level of control as the project develops.
Changes are a normal part of construction projects. Materials may become unavailable, unexpected site conditions can arise and design details may need to be revised as work progresses.
For higher-risk building projects, however, changes to approved work cannot simply be agreed on site and incorporated without a formal process. Any controlled change must be assessed, documented and added to the project’s change control log.
Depending on the nature of the change, the building control authority may also need to be notified. Changes are categorised as recordable, notifiable or major. Where a change is considered major, approval must be obtained before the relevant work can proceed.
This places greater emphasis on maintaining accurate records and ensuring that design and construction information remains up to date throughout the project.
Alongside the new dutyholder and change control requirements, the higher-risk building regime places much greater emphasis on how important building safety information is recorded, maintained and shared throughout a project.
This is where the golden thread of information comes in.
The aim is to create a clear, reliable and up-to-date record of how the building has been designed and constructed, including the decisions that have been made about important safety matters.
Rather than key information being scattered across drawings, emails, specifications, reports and different consultants’ systems, it should be managed in a way that keeps it accessible and consistent as the project progresses.
Welsh Government guidance requires the golden thread to be maintained digitally and kept accurate, secure, accessible and up to date. Relevant information must also be handed over to the person responsible for the safety of the building when the work is complete.
For project teams, this means information management needs to be considered from the outset and maintained throughout the life of the project, rather than being pieced together retrospectively at completion.
The new higher-risk building regime also places greater emphasis on identifying serious building safety issues when they arise rather than waiting until the end of a project.
Principal dutyholders must establish and operate a system for reporting relevant safety occurrences during construction. This is intended to make serious concerns visible at an early stage so they can be investigated and dealt with appropriately.
For project teams, reporting should form part of the project’s wider approach to managing building safety. People working on the project need to understand how concerns are raised, recorded and escalated where necessary.
Reaching the end of construction does not quite mean the regulatory process is finished.
For higher-risk building projects, an application must be made for a completion certificate, often referred to as Gateway 3. This is the point at which the building control authority reviews the completed work and supporting project information.
That information needs to reflect the building as it has actually been constructed, including relevant records and compliance information maintained during the project. The building control authority must be satisfied that the completed work complies with the relevant Building Regulations before it can issue the completion certificate.
This makes project close-out something that should be considered well before the final weeks of construction.
Trying to reconstruct design decisions, change records or compliance information at the end of a project is likely to be considerably harder than maintaining those records properly as the work progresses.
It is also important to understand when a project is considered to have formally commenced.
From 1 July 2026, building control approval can automatically lapse if the work has not reached the required commencement stage within three years. There are also notification requirements around both the start of work and the point at which formal commencement is reached.
Importantly, starting work and commencing work now have different meanings for Building Regulations purposes.
The precise commencement threshold depends on the type of project. For example, for many new buildings or horizontal extensions it requires the sub-surface structure, foundations and ground floor structure to have been completed. Different requirements apply to complex buildings and other types of building work.
In practice, this means that carrying out a small amount of work on site may not be enough to keep an approval alive.
For developers and project teams, the key point is to build these requirements into the programme from the very start. This is particularly important for phased developments or projects with longer lead times, where there may be a significant gap between approval being granted and substantial work beginning on site.
The new regime also gives local authorities stronger powers to act where building work does not comply with the regulations.
This can include issuing compliance notices, requiring problems to be put right, or stop notices where work needs to pause until an issue has been resolved.
For project teams, the practical message is clear: it is far better to identify and deal with compliance issues early.
A problem found during the design stage may only require a drawing or specification to be amended. The same issue discovered after construction has taken place could lead to delays, additional professional costs and potentially significant remedial work.
Good coordination, clear responsibilities and regular compliance checks can therefore help prevent relatively small issues becoming much more disruptive later in the project.
There are transitional arrangements for projects already underway or within the building control system before the new regime took effect.
Broadly, work may continue under the previous requirements where the relevant plans, notices or approvals were submitted before 1 July 2026 and the conditions of the transitional arrangements continue to be met.
This is particularly important for higher-risk building projects because qualifying transitional projects may not be subject to requirements such as the new gateways, golden thread and dutyholder provisions.
The position can depend on how and when the project entered the building control process, however, and transitional protection can be lost in certain circumstances. Existing projects should therefore be checked individually rather than assuming that either the old or new regime automatically applies.
The changes mean Building Regulations compliance needs to be considered much earlier in a project, rather than something to address once the design is largely complete or construction is about to begin.
For clients, developers and project teams working in Wales, some of the key things to consider are:
The overall message is to make compliance part of the normal design and construction process. Establishing responsibilities, information management and building control requirements early can help avoid delays and difficult compliance issues later.
With several pieces of building safety legislation now applying in Wales, it is understandable that there may be some confusion about how they fit together.
The changes introduced from 1 July 2026 relate primarily to the design and construction of buildings. They implement further provisions of the Building Safety Act 2022 in Wales and introduce the new dutyholder requirements, higher-risk building procedures, change control, building control processes and other measures discussed above.
The Building Safety (Wales) Act 2026 has a different focus.
It establishes a new Welsh framework for the assessment and ongoing management of building safety risks during the occupation of multi-occupied residential buildings. The Act creates different categories of regulated building and places statutory duties on those responsible for relevant parts of those buildings. Certain buildings of 11 metres or more, or at least five storeys, will also be subject to registration requirements.
The Act received Royal Assent on 27 April 2026. Some provisions came into force on 28 April, while others require further regulations or commencement orders before taking effect.
The simplest way to understand the distinction is that the 1 July 2026 Building Regulations changes are principally concerned with how buildings are designed, approved and constructed, while the Building Safety (Wales) Act 2026 is principally concerned with the assessment and ongoing management of building safety risks in multi-occupied residential buildings once they are occupied.
For developers and property owners involved throughout the lifecycle of a residential building, both regimes may therefore be relevant at different stages.
The new requirements can feel complex, particularly where responsibilities overlap between clients, designers, contractors and building control.
Getting the right structure in place early can make the process much easier to manage and help reduce the risk of redesign, delays or compliance issues later in the project.
WBC Group supports clients, developers, architects and contractors across South Wales and the South West with Building Regulations compliance and Building Safety Act Principal Designer services.
Whether you are still developing the design, preparing a Building Regulations application or simply need clarity on how the new Welsh requirements affect your project, our team can help you understand what is required and put the right arrangements in place from the outset.
Speak to WBC Group about Building Regulations and Principal Designer support for your project. Call our Cardiff and Newport team on 01633 982588 for more information or or contact us online to arrange an initial free consultation and explore your options.
This article provides general information about changes to the building control regime in Wales and should not be treated as legal advice. The requirements applying to an individual project will depend on the building and proposed work.