Scottish building regulations | Deferment of 2022 energy standards

The Scottish Government have announced a delay to the implementation date for changes to the energy and environmental standards.

The decision has been made to defer the implementation date of changes to energy and environmental standards within the December 2022 Technical Handbooks by two months, from 1 December 2022 to 1 February 2023.

This follows a final assessment of the delivery timetables for energy compliance software. The Scottish Government says it remains likely that some tools will be approved and available for use in Scotland in advance of 1 December, but recognise concerns expressed over the delay in the availability of assessment software to support the new standards.

They continue: "Without energy compliance, software developers cannot prepare and validate design proposals as compliant with the new standards. This limits their capacity, at this point, to progress projects and submit complete information to local authorities for approval once changes to regulations are in force. We recognise this is a particular concern for smaller developers and projects, where there is less opportunity to bring forward or delay applications for building warrant.

"We appreciate the effort to date by software developers in working towards the approval of SAP and SBEM/DSM tools for Scotland and hope this will continue, to provide updated Scottish software for their users as soon as practicable."

The Technical Handbooks webpage has now been updated to reflect the deferment, which will be formalised later this month by a further amendment of the Building (Scotland) Regulations 2004.

Designers seeking to comply with the standards or to submit a building warrant between 1 June 2022 and 31 January 2023 should refer to Building standards technical handbooks 2022 - Summary of changes (June 2022).