Housing minister Grant Shapps has scrapped the planned introduction of design standards by the Homes and Communities Agency which would have added 拢8,000 to the building cost of homes

Shapps said the proposed regulations were an 鈥渦nnecessary expense鈥�. He also said he would 鈥渢ackle the 鈥檃lphabet soup鈥欌�� of local building standards and called on developers to come up with suggestions for a new system of local development standards.