Trading standards to tackle cowboy builders

The Consumer White Paper, produced by the Department of Trade and Industry, has recommended that trading standards officers be given extended powers and a further £30 million per year to help tackle the problem of "cowboy builders."

The move has been welcomed by Tony Merricks, chairman of the Cowboy Builders Taskforce. Merricks told CJ: "In our interim report we called for a strengthening of existing legislation, and it looks as though these proposals will do just that."

Trading standards officers will be given new powers to apply for court injunctions to shut down dishonest businesses as soon as fraud is uncovered, and the worst offenders will be prevented from setting up new ventures. Proposals also include quick procedures for introducing secondary legislation to outlaw new scams.

Graham Watts, chief executive of the Construction Industry Council, said: "It shows that we have joined up Government, and it reserves a slot for the Department of the Environment, Transport and the Region's [DETR] anti-cowboy scheme. I was always a bit worried that we could have wasted two years research within DETR if the DTI confused matters, but a lot of research from the DTI and the Office of Fair Trading has been fed into the DETR working group."

Andy Watts, chief executive of the Institute of Plumbing, said: "This is a shift we have never seen in previous Governments, a move to regulate markets. The Government has got the message that something needs to be done about rogue traders, not only in the building sector."