From Wrexham’s business parks to Chester’s housebuilders, plenty of firms work both sides of the border. Wales has now set 1 July 2026 to switch on a fresh round of Building Safety Act 2022 measures, confirmed through the Building Safety Act 2022 (Commencement No. 6) (Wales) Regulations 2025, signed by Cabinet Secretary Rebecca Evans MS.

The most visible change will be new compliance and stop notices. Welsh local authorities will be able to order fixes within set periods or halt work where there’s a risk of serious harm. That gives councils clearer tools to pause unsafe jobs and require remedial steps before work restarts.

Penalties also tighten. Breaching building regulations becomes a criminal offence triable either way, with the prospect of up to two years’ imprisonment or an unlimited fine, plus further daily fines for ongoing non‑compliance. The Act also extends the time limit for councils to issue section 36 enforcement notices on defective work from one year to ten.

Another practical shift is timing. Building control approvals, initial notices and plans certificates will lapse automatically if work hasn’t started within three years. For multi‑plot sites, approvals can fall away for buildings where spades haven’t gone in, even if other plots are underway-mirroring planning-style lapses and reducing the scope for ‘banked’ permissions.

There’s also a new backstop when decisions stall. If a building control authority fails to determine prescribed applications for higher‑risk building work in time, applicants can ask the Welsh Ministers to decide the original application. That route is designed to prevent complex projects from drifting.

Welsh Ministers gain firmer powers to intervene where a council is falling short. If performance risks public safety, functions can be transferred by order to Welsh Ministers or another authority-essentially a safety net to keep enforcement standards up.

For readers used to the English regime, note the distinction. England’s Building Safety Regulator took control of higher‑risk buildings on 1 October 2023, while Wales is phasing in its own system and timing. This commencement order brings key enforcement tools into Welsh law, with further Welsh‑specific reforms still moving through.

What this means on the ground for northern firms working in North Wales: programmes that rely on long shelf‑lives for approvals will need a once‑over; site managers should expect faster use of stop notices where designs or workmanship drift from spec; and commercial teams should price in the risks of delay if remedial work is ordered mid‑build. The three‑year lapse rule and stronger sanctions make scheduling discipline more important than ever.

Councils will need resourcing and training to use these powers well. Welsh Government circulars through 2025 flagged wider changes to Approved Documents (including updates to fire safety guidance and materials standards) and signalled the next wave of building control reform-context local teams in Conwy, Denbighshire and Flintshire will be factoring into 2026 budgets.

This sits alongside the separate Building Safety (Wales) Bill, introduced to the Senedd on 7 July 2025 and now under scrutiny. Put together, the Bill and this commencement order point to 2026 as the year Welsh enforcement properly bites-important for housing associations active in North Wales and for contractors based in Merseyside, Cheshire and Greater Manchester who regularly cross the A55.