Small businesses are in a perpetual struggle to deal with difficult-to-enforce building regulations, according to the Construction Industry Council (CIC).
Richard Biggs, operations director and registrar for the CIC, said that although the regulations usually "have good intentions", a lack of resources makes them very difficult to enforce.
The problem is particularly severe for smaller firms, who often cannot afford to pay for new industry standard details, Mr Biggs said.
Mr Biggs noted that the construction industry needed to get a better deal from the government in order to make the lives of struggling businesses easier.
"We're forever struggling with more and more regulations… I think a lot of them are red tape," he said.
"Larger firms can more easily cope with targets and regulations and so on… [smaller firms] find it very difficult to keep up to date."
