Building Safety Regulator to oversee a new safety regime

Housing Secretary Robert Jenrick has outlined the next key step in an extensive overhaul to building safety legislation, giving residents more power to hold builders and developers to account and toughening sanctions against those who threaten their safety.

The government says that the Building Safety Bill will create lasting generational change and set out a clear pathway for the future on how residential buildings should be constructed and maintained.

As part of the new legislation, a Building Safety Regulator will oversee the new regime and will be responsible for ensuring that any building safety risks in new and existing high rise residential buildings of 18m and above are effectively managed and resolved, taking cost into account.

This will include implementing specific gateway points at design, construction and completion phases to ensure that safety is considered at each and every stage of a building’s construction, and safety risks are considered at the earliest stage of the planning process.

The reforms build upon Dame Judith Hackitt’s review of Building Regulations and Fire Safety, which highlighted a need for significant cultural and regulatory change.

Under the proposals, the government is more than doubling the amount of time that residents can seek compensation for substandard construction work, from six to 15 years. This means that residents of a building completed in 2010 would be able to bring proceedings against the developer until 2025.

Jenrick said: “This Bill will ensure high standards of safety for people’s homes, and in particular for high rise buildings, with a new regulator providing essential oversight at every stage of a building’s lifecycle, from design, construction, completion to occupation. The new building safety regime will be a proportionate one, ensuring those buildings requiring remediation are brought to an acceptable standard of safety swiftly, and reassuring the vast majority of residents and leaseholders in those buildings that their homes are safe.”

Lord Greenhalgh, Minister for Building and Fire Safety, said: “The comprehensive steps we are taking today will ensure that industry and the regulatory system fully address the concerns raised in the ‘Building a Safer Future’ report by Dame Judith Hackitt. Though the overall risk of fire across all buildings remains low, we can’t be complacent – the more robust regime will take a proportionate and risk-based approach to remediation and other safety risks. And by increasing our measures of enforcement, we will make sure industry follows the rules – and is held to account when it doesn’t.”