Communities Minister Don Foster has launched a new independent group of building industry experts, tasked with simplifying the mass of rules imposed on developers and housebuilders, to make them easier to understand and follow.

As part of the Government's Red Tape Challenge Ministers have made clear they want to do everything possible to remove unnecessary burdens and bureaucracy imposed on developers to get much needed new homes built, and support economic growth. The current, complex system of building regulations and housing standards will be targeted by a new Independent Challenge Panel, which will consider how these requirements work together and what potential there is to free up the system and make it work more efficiently.

The panel will for the first time bring independent experts together with government and it will report to ministers in spring.

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But Mr Foster also made clear that essential safety and accessibility protections will remain untouched and that homes will always need to be built to high sustainability and quality standards.

But with the hundreds of standards that can be applied to new-build homes, some of which duplicate each other, a separate group will work alongside the new Challenge Panel to consider the specific issue of standards applied to housebuilding.

While some of these standards are applied nationally across certain types of homes such as affordable housing, others are made mandatory by individual councils for building in their area and some are entirely voluntary - resulting in confusion for local people and developers.

This new review, led by DCLG and to be conducted by a group of industry representatives, will look to avoid overlap and duplication in the system, helping ensure builders meet the high standards that aspiring homeowners rightly expect.

Mr Foster said: "The current array of different housing standards used in different parts the country is complex and counter-productive: confusing local residents, councillors and developers.

"This is why an urgent review has now started, bringing the government together with housebuilders, planners, councils and architects to establish what the unnecessary measures are that we can cut out of the system, whilst ensuring buildings are still made to exacting standards.

"I want to see a simpler set of housing standards that people can easily understand and that free up developers and councils to get on with the job of building the high quality new homes we so badly to get more first time buyers and families onto the housing ladder."

(CD/GK)