Building Control Department Mess

The lack of resources in the Building Control Unit of the Planning Department has reached a crisis point.

While the Head of Department knew many months ago that the BCU workload being developed through the CPA was significant, it appears no effective move was made to fill the resource deficiency. Recent commercial projects have taken over 14 weeks to be reviewed, the worst seeming to be from the electrical section.

Minister of Planning, Mr. Kurt Tibbetts has just announced that private electricians will be volunteering to assist in plan reviews. It is understood that they will only be reviewing residential home applications, of which over 80% are returned the first time.
This return rate is indicative of the fact that the residential drawings are being prepared by non qualified persons with little or no subject knowledge or training.

A law requiring registration would no doubt assist in reducing this additional workload for the department but no Government to date has had the guts to propose a Registration Law that is inline with worldwide practices. So in Cayman, persons preparing Architectural, Engineering and Surveying works do not need to have any experience or training whatsoever.

Maybe this BCU blunder may cause someone to look at the Registration Law again with reason.