Simon Blackham of the insulation maker Recticel, which expects to spend around £400,000 to comply with the new regime. The UKCA quality standard is imposing unwelcome costs, from chemicals to construction materials When the government announced this year it would indefinitely delay plans to force UK companies to adopt a new post-Brexit quality mark, the UKCA, Simon Blackham, of the insulation maker Recticel, was delighted. “Yes! An outbreak of common sense,” he recalls thinking. His joy was short-lived, however. It quickly emerged that the government’s change of heart did not apply to construction products, such as the insulation panels Recticel manufactures in Stoke-on-Trent. Within the next 18 months, the Belgian-owned firm expects to have to spend about £400,000 in the UK retesting its products to comply with the new regime. It is an increasingly common story: three years on from Brexit, as the government celebrates leaving the EU’s complex regulatory regime, many firms are finding the practicalities of this “divergence” costly and confusing – and business groups say that it is going to get worse. Chemicals are another case in point. Since January 2020, the UK has failed to ban 36 pesticides that are not allowed for use in the EU. Blackham wearily explains that construction products are overseen by Michael Gove’s housing ministry, not the Business and Trade department which issued that statement back in August, saying the government would continue to recognise the EU’s CE mark for many products. Gove’s department has opted instead to press ahead with replacing the CE mark with the UKCA, for all construction products sold in the UK from June 2025. This new mark incorporates the same standards as the EU version – but only UK-accredited testing facilities will be able to validate it. Blackham, Recticel’s senior technical manager in the UK, […]
Click here to visit source. ‘We’re out of step’: how post-Brexit UK is drifting from EU standards