Building Safety Hub
Supporting building and fire safety excellence in tall residential buildings in England
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The Home Office has published the second of its Fire Safety Reform Team’s update.
This update covers the following issues:
- Upcoming changes to the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005
- Monitoring the impact of reforms to-date
- Promoting the fire safety reforms
- Supporting work on Fire Risk Assessor capacity and capability
- An update on the Fire Safety Guidance Programme
Download the 2nd bimonthly update here.
If you would like to be added to the distribution list or if you have any general questions then please feel free to email firesafetyreform@homeoffice.gov.uk.
- Fire Safety
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This guidance provides stakeholders with a plain-English explanation of the implications of the latest leaseholder protections amendments in the Building Safety Act 2022.
Introduction
1. Since the leaseholder protections came into force in the summer of 2022, DLUHC has engaged extensively with leaseholders, landlords and others affected, such as lenders and conveyancers, to monitor compliance with, and the operation of, the Building Safety Act (the Act) and the leaseholder protections.2. The Building Safety (Leaseholder Protections etc.) (England) (Amendment) Regulations 2023 (SI 2023/895) (referred to in this guidance as “the amending regulations”) make amendments to The Building Safety (Leaseholder Protections) (England) Regulations 2022 (SI 2022/711) and The Building Safety (Leaseholder Protections) (Information etc.) (England) Regulations 2022 (SI 2022/859) to ensure they have effect in the way originally intended.
3. The amending regulations are an important step in improving the implementation of the leaseholder protections and provide further detail.
Click here to read the full guidance.
- Building Remediation
- Leaseholder Protections
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DLUHC has set up a Guidance Page which provides links to all the secondary legislation of the Building Safety Act, including commencement regulations, building control and higher-risk buildings regulations, leaseholder protections and the Responsible Actor's scheme.
- Building Safety Act
- Legislation, Regulations & Guidance
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This briefing, publsihed by the House of Commons Library, discusses fire safety requirements for houses and blocks of flats, the 'stay put' strategy and the government response to the Grenfell Tower fire.
- Fire Safety
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In accordance with the Fire Safety Act 2021, any multi-occupancy residential building’s fire risk assessment must comment on the external walls and advise whether a fire risk appraisal of the external walls (FRAEW) is recommended. In a time of austerity and new regulations that have not been budgeted for, this extra outlay is not desirable. But is there any way to avoid it, legally and safely, or is the sometimes-costly external wall appraisal always required? According to façade and internal fire-safety experts FR Consultants Ltd, while the majority of in-scope buildings will always require a PAS 9980 FRAEW, there are a few select situations where they can be omitted.
It is important to understand that a full FRAEW does form a key part of the requirements for the following regulations and processes:
- structure, external walls and flat entrance doors fall within the scope of the Fire Safety Order, and the Fire Safety Act 2021 requires that these elements be included in all fire risk assessments
- the golden thread of information, the model of gathering, storing and maintaining the key information of a building’s life cycle under the Building Safety Act 2022
- as part of the information on the design and materials of the external wall system and level of risk that must be provided to the local fire and rescue service under the Fire Safety (England) Regulations 2022
- an EWS1 assessment certificate, also known as the External Wall System Fire Review certificate, is a requirement for any leaseholder buying, selling or remortgaging an apartment in a multistorey, multi-occupied residential building
- applications for the Building Safety Fund and Cladding Safety Scheme, the multi-billion-pound funds for addressing life-safety fire risks associated with cladding on mid-rise and high-rise residential buildings
- for insurance purposes, having a FRAEW has proven beneficial in reducing renewal premiums owing to the risk reduction.
In all these situations, there is no question that a FRAEW is required.
The requirement for a FRAEW is determined within the fire risk assessment, which must consider the external walls and any attachments. This includes cladding, balconies and any additional external structures, the purpose being to assess the risk to occupants from a fire spreading over or within the external walls of the building and to decide whether remediation to address the risk is considered necessary on a particular building. In some cases, owing to an isolated location or limited extent of the system, the external walls may not be considered at risk, and therefore a PAS 9980 FRAEW will not be required.
- Fire Safety