The Department of Planning and Urban Development has released a report detailing the compliance of buildings within Eldoret town and trading centers within Uasin Gishu County.
The report was developed following a process of inspection of buildings by officers drawn from planning, development control, and building inspection sections.
According to the county’s Physical Planning and Urban Development Chief officer Kenneth Mbeka, the feedback report provided by the Building Inspection team was that over 70 percent of the buildings in Eldoret and the major upcoming trading centers were compliant.
This means they had complete approvals from the National Environmental Management Authority (NEMA), National Construction Authority (NCA), and the County Physical Planning office.
The buildings also had complied with plan approvals, an inspection of materials, testing, and construction activities for the safety of residents.
Speaking while receiving the report, Mbeka noted that statutory regulations of buildings were the only sure way to avert occurrences of building collapse.
Few structures were, however, identified as unsafe due to deterioration from age and weather effects on incomplete buildings.
The Chief Officer cautioned the inspection team to ensure that the buildings marked unsafe provide a report from registered structural engineers to ascertain their safety.
Recently, Eldoret town has been witnessing growth, with several new upcoming buildings. A number of old buildings have also been demolished, and construction works for new and modern ones are coming up, to replace them.
The town is also working towards attaining a city status – with multiple major facelifts, among them, tarmacking of roads and renovation of backstreets which is almost complete.
