Building Safety Hub
Supporting building and fire safety excellence in tall residential buildings in England
Latest
-
Ensuring that tenants live in good quality, safe homes is a fundamental responsibility of all social housing landlords (landlords). As part of meeting that responsibility, building safety remains a key priority, including ensuring that tenants living in multi-occupied, medium and high-rise buildings are safe from fire safety risks.
In August 2023, private registered providers (PRPs) and local authority registered providers (LARPs) were asked to submit data to the Regulator of Social Housing (RSH) and the Department of Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (DLUHC) on the fire safety remediation of 11 metre plus buildings that they were responsible for.
On 16 November 2023, the Minister of State for Housing and Planning outlined in Parliament, in a Building Safety Update, that landlords will be expected to provide quarterly updates on progress on Fire Safety Remediation for all 11 metre plus buildings. A second survey of providers commenced in December 2023.
The survey is to help provide an overview of whether landlords:
- are meeting their obligations under the Fire Safety (Regulatory) Order 2005 for assessing fire safety risks associated with the relevant parts of those buildings;
- understand any risks they identify and how they should be addressed, particularly in relation to external wall systems (EWS) and;
- have plans in place to remediate buildings they have identified as having life critical fire safety risks in a timely manner.
It is for boards and councillors to understand landlords’ legal obligations in relation to managing the safety of buildings and seek assurance that they are being met, and that any identified risks are being well managed and promptly remedied. Ensuring organisations have robust systems and processes, underpinned by accurate and up to date data on fire safety and its management, is a key aspect of ensuring that tenants are safe in their homes.
- Fire Safety
-
On 19 February, Michael Gove, Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities published a statement on the government’s long-term plan for housing.
The statement included an update on BSR’s plans to publish the new guidance on second staircases:
"The Building Safety Regulator will publish the new guidance on second staircases before the end of March, making clear the need for a second staircase in new multi-occupancy residential buildings that have a top occupied storey above 18 metres, and confirming that evacuation lifts will not be called for as a matter of course, providing housebuilders with the clarity they need to progress developments
The revised statutory guidance, known as Approved Document B, represents general guidance: it will not be exhaustive, and the design of each high-rise building will continue to receive individual scrutiny from experts, now via the Building Safety Regulator. The fire safety design for any higher risk buildings above 18 metres will be subject to review at Planning Gateway One by fire safety professionals, and by a multi-disciplinary team at Gateway Two, who must be satisfied that the final fire safety provisions are appropriate to the requirements of each individual building."
-
A new online system to allow residents to inquire whether their HRB has been registered has gone live today (8 February 2024), by searching the register with a building's postcode.
The facility provides anyone the ability to look up a defined set of information relating to successfully registered Higher Risk Buildin via the portal page here. Users will be able to search for buildings by postcode, and the system will return registration information relating to a single building at a time. The system is designed to prevent users gathering data on multiple buildings in a single search and to prevent data scraping of the records.
If users are unable to find information relating to a building they expect to be registered, they will be directed to use the Contact the BSR digital service. The BSR Customer Service Team (CST) team will then support them to find their building on the register. If a building is not identified on the HRB Register, CST will capture basic information regarding the building and pass this information through to the BSR Investigations Unit for review and action as appropriate.
Access the website here: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/find-a-high-rise-residential-building
- Building Safety Regulator
-
The BSR has today published a ‘Safety Case Toolkit’ guide which is accessible here.
The information within the guide is aimed at accountable persons (defined under section 84 of the Building Safety Act 2022) to assist them in preparing a safety case report. A safety case report must demonstrate that all reasonable steps have been taken to prevent building safety risks happening and reduce the seriousness if they do.
- Building Safety Regulator
- Safety Case & Report
-
The government has made and laid before Parliament the Building (Registered Building Control Approvers etc) (England) Regulations 2024 (SI 2024/110), which come into force on 6 April 2024, in England only.
The regulations set out the procedures that apply when a registered building control approver supervises work under the building regulations in England.
From 6 April, the role of the approved inspector under the building regulations will be replaced by that of the registered building control approver (except in relation to some transitional projects).
These new regulations effectively perform the same function for a registered building control approver as the Building (Approved Inspectors etc) Regulations 2010 (SI 2010/2215) performed for an approved inspector. As such, practitioners will recognise much of their structure and content.
- Building Safety Act
-
UPDATED: Residential PEEPs: Guidance for Responsible Persons
-
Residential PEEPS - Regulations Guidance
-
Fire Safety (Residential Evacuation Plans) (England) Regulations 2025
-
Guidance About The Criteria For Being a Higher-Risk Building
-
UK Finance Updates Lender Statement on EWS1