🚨 Compliance Crisis: The New Build Cost Challenge

Wednesday 15th June 2022

Albert Road, New Barnet, EN4 9SH

The EN4 New Build: How the Part L Rules Added Thousands to the Build Cost on Albert Road

The area around New Barnet, particularly sites like those near Albert Road (EN4 9SH), has seen significant residential density increase, driven by good rail links. Developments like Park Quarter demonstrate the high volume of new apartment stock being delivered.

However, the major policy change that hit new build sites here was the implementation of the new Part L (Conservation of Fuel and Power) of the Building Regulations on June 15, 2022. This mandated a 31% reduction in carbon emissions for new dwellings compared to previous standards.

The Cost Impact: To meet this target, every new home we design in EN4 must now include significantly higher-spec insulation, better windows, and most critically, requires certified airtightness testing on every single unit. These requirements added thousands of pounds to the Total Cost of construction per dwelling—not just for materials, but for specialist testing and labour time to ensure airtight seals.

The Market Reality: While these homes are cheaper to run (saving the client money on energy bills), the immediate increase in build cost was passed on to the buyer. This contributes directly to the rise in average house prices for new builds in Barnet (where the average detached home already sits around £1.57 million).

Robbins Construction Ltd Opinion: We embrace energy efficiency, but the speed of regulatory change was a shock. It requires constant re-training of our site managers and forced us to increase our initial material procurement costs substantially. The market needs more government support (grants) specifically targeted at training SME builders in these advanced, high-efficiency techniques to mitigate the impact on house prices.