diff --git a/.github/workflows/testsuite.yml b/.github/workflows/testsuite.yml
index 1bf0fc905..864c9fd14 100644
--- a/.github/workflows/testsuite.yml
+++ b/.github/workflows/testsuite.yml
@@ -110,3 +110,40 @@ jobs:
         coveralls --finish
       env:
         GITHUB_TOKEN: ${{ secrets.GITHUB_TOKEN }}
+
+  test_doc_build:
+    needs: get_python_versions
+    name: Test building the documentation
+    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
+    defaults:
+      run:
+        shell: bash -l {0}
+    steps:
+    - name: Checkout Repository
+      uses: actions/checkout@v2
+      with:
+        fetch-depth: 0
+        submodules: true
+
+    - name: Setup Conda and Python
+      uses: conda-incubator/setup-miniconda@v2
+      with:
+        auto-update-conda: true
+        auto-activate-base: false
+        channels: conda-forge,defaults
+        channel-priority: true
+        activate-environment: 'test_env'
+        python-version: "${{ needs.get_python_versions.outputs.max-python }}"
+
+    - name: Install dependencies
+      run: pip install -r rtd-requirements.txt
+
+    - name: Install brian2
+      run: pip install .
+
+    - name: Build HTML documentation
+      run: |
+        cd docs_sphinx
+        sphinx-build -b html . ../docs
+      env:
+        READTHEDOCS: True
diff --git a/brian2/sphinxext/generate_examples.py b/brian2/sphinxext/generate_examples.py
index 17a77d595..a1ade32ec 100644
--- a/brian2/sphinxext/generate_examples.py
+++ b/brian2/sphinxext/generate_examples.py
@@ -1,4 +1,3 @@
-import codecs
 import fnmatch
 import glob
 import os
@@ -71,7 +70,7 @@ def main(rootpath, destdir):
     # We assume all files are encoded as UTF-8
     examplescode = []
     for fname in examplesfnames:
-        with codecs.open(fname, "rU", encoding="utf-8") as f:
+        with open(fname, encoding="utf-8") as f:
             examplescode.append(f.read())
     examplesdocs = []
     examplesafterdoccode = []
@@ -157,7 +156,7 @@ def main(rootpath, destdir):
             print("Found example image file", image)
             output += f".. image:: ../resources/examples_images/{image}\n\n"
 
-        with codecs.open(os.path.join(destdir, exname + ".rst"), "w", "utf-8") as f:
+        with open(os.path.join(destdir, exname + ".rst"), "w", encoding="utf-8") as f:
             f.write(output)
 
     category_additional_files = defaultdict(list)
@@ -168,7 +167,7 @@ def main(rootpath, destdir):
             relpath = ""
         full_name = relpath.replace("/", ".").replace("\\", ".") + "." + file + ".rst"
         category_additional_files[relpath].append((file, full_name))
-        with codecs.open(fname, "rU", encoding="utf-8") as f:
+        with open(fname, encoding="utf-8") as f:
             print(fname)
             content = f.read()
         output = file + "\n" + "=" * len(file) + "\n\n"
@@ -176,7 +175,7 @@ def main(rootpath, destdir):
         content_lines = ["\t" + l for l in content.split("\n")]
         output += "\n".join(content_lines)
         output += "\n\n"
-        with codecs.open(os.path.join(destdir, full_name), "w", "utf-8") as f:
+        with open(os.path.join(destdir, full_name), "w", encoding="utf-8") as f:
             f.write(output)
 
     mainpage_text = "Examples\n"