A customer review of Thames Building Control Limited

Behind a glossy and professional looking veneer is a company that in my experience is incapable of solving problems and treats its customers like naughty children. It is by some distance the worst professional service company that I have dealt with in my 30 years in industry.

My experience may be solely the fault of one rogue inspector and the mistaken belief that closing ranks would protect the company image. Alternatively, it might be standard practice in this company. I don’t know. Either way it’s led me to make a formal complaint to the Building Safety Regulator asking them to suspend their registration and to write this review.

The job was a straightforward wraparound extension with some interior alterations. All the usual on site and remote inspections had gone well and we were given the go-ahead by the Thames Building Control inspector to cover the whole structure and start plastering. The build was pretty much done.

2 weeks later Thames Building Control cancelled our notice forcing us to start the building control process again and leaving me £1,980 out of pocket.

It should have been obvious that something was strange when the inspector, a man by the name of Ken Limpkin, refused to provide any guidance on how we should apply a particular section of Part K to the design. He just said ‘you should know’ and walked off.

The Approved Documents are intentionally full of terms like ‘appropriate’ or ‘suitable’, so that an experienced inspector can make a judgement call in a particular context. It is not an exam. There are no prizes. We all just want to build buildings that people can depend on.

Not our Ken though. It felt like being back at school. You probably also had a teacher that would make you feel stupid for asking a question. That's what it felt like to me and I was the one paying for this treatment.

Anyway, some 5 months in, Ken was on site again and seemed very happy with the build. He then implied, in passing, to one of the contractors that the fire system was not compliant.

I emailed him straight away to seek clarification. I heard nothing for 3 weeks…then….

BOOM - The plans were suddenly not good enough and I had 14 days to send him ‘proper’ ones or they would cancel our notice.

I immediately replied asking what was missing. I heard nothing for nearly a week. Then…

BOOM - I now only had ONE week to send him ‘proper’ plans.

I honestly thought at this stage that the inspector might be having some personal issues, so I gently tried to coax out of him what he might be missing. He replied implying that I was incompetent.

It should probably be noted that the very same plans went straight through planning, were used by the independent engineer to make all of the structural calculations and drawings and were used by the various contractors to build the actual building. All without any issues whatsoever. Indeed, the very same Thames Building Control Inspector had also visited the site several times and had been updated at every stage with timestamped photos and videos and had been happy for us to cover up the structure and start the final plastering process.

The plans that were suddenly not ‘proper’ included standard plan and elevation drawings, duly annotated, the full engineers drawings and calculations which detailed the design of the footings, pads, steels and remaining structure. Section drawings of the walls and roofs as well as a fire plan and drainage diagram. This was in addition to a large amount of photos and videos sent to him and the inspectors' own site visits.

Here is the actual drawing of one part of the warm roof and wall detail that we had sent him. It may not win drawing of the year, but it certainly leaves very little ambiguity.

I am fairly certain that based solely on the information that Thames Building Control now had, that a competent contractor could exactly replicate the build, brick by brick, with no further input.

Having now exhausted all rational communication with Ken Limpkin, I contacted the Operations Manager Jason Andrijašević and sent him all of the correspondence. He requested 3 weeks to review this. Fair enough.

3 weeks later he replied that “you ignored our concerns and continued with the building work”.

We did no such thing! The very first time we were made aware of any concerns was after  we had finished the build to the satisfaction of the very same inspector.

So what was missing?

We still have no idea despite asking several times. They just cancelled the notice and trousered the cash.

I am currently awaiting the Building Safety Regulator’s ruling and I am minded to publish all of the emails in full at that stage, so you can make up your own mind. I have been advised to wait until then.

I imagine that the big boss, Jason Andrijašević, will send me some threatening legal letter now, so for the avoidance of any doubt, Mr Andrijašević (as he insists on being called), the above is my honestly held belief and I am very happy to correct any inaccuracies. You have my contact details and both you and the BSR have a full copy of all of our correspondence. I have also sent you an email with a link to this review, so you can be the first to see it.

P.