Mark Harding responds to complaints by neighbours about dodgy conservatories, extensions and conversions. He tries to get offending builders, whom he says are all sole traders, to move the job onto a legal basis.
If they don鈥檛, he prosecutes.
He currently has five cases making their way through Magistrates Court. They include the case of a man he calls Birmingham鈥檚 worst builder, who left behind a string of faulty loft conversions and has already been fined 拢12,000. He was in court again as CM went to press.
But Harding could do a lot more to enforce the 星空传媒 Regulations if the law was changed. Under the Magistrates Court Act he has only got six months from the date of the offence to get a summons before the court. Sometimes months have gone by before the offence is even reported.
鈥淭hat鈥檚 no time at all,鈥� he complained.
鈥淥nce I鈥檝e found out about it, done the interviews, written the letters, taken the photographs, compiled the file as thick as a telephone book, got it off to the solicitors, it鈥檚 absolutely no time at all.
鈥淣o matter how dangerous the work is, or how wrong it is, we can鈥檛 take any enforcement action against the builder, which is why cowboy builders proliferate. We don鈥檛 have enough power to do anything about it.
鈥淚f ministers are serious about tackling cowboy builders they had better give us proper legal tools,鈥� he said.
Source
Construction Manager
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