Last month, Chief Inspector of Buildings Peter Baker addressed our first face-to-face Local Government Association (LGA) conference on building safety.
The LGA Annual Conference is the biggest event in the local government calendar. Joined by HSE’s Chair Sarah Newton, Peter shared details on how HSE is establishing the new Building Safety Regulator in England, setting out how local authorities can get ready to meet the challenges of the new regulatory framework, both as landlords and as co-regulators.
Peter spoke to a number of Council Chief Inspectors and Councillors at the event as well as partner regulators, developers and resident organisations about how HSE will work closely with local authority building control and fire and rescue services to deliver the reforms to building safety.
HSE’s Chair Sarah Newton also hosted a panel of representatives from the National Fire Chiefs Council, Local Authority Building Control and the LGA who joined Peter and Sarah to discuss preparing for the coming changes. This was attended by over 20 Local Authorities and provided an opportunity to start an ongoing conversation about the impact the new law will have on them.
When the BSR becomes the Building Control Authority for higher risk buildings in October 2023, Local Authorities will be required to provide project resource from their building control teams. Therefore reviewing how they manage their building control functions now is crucial.
Hear from Peter, Sarah and delegates at the event
The Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (DLUHC) has launched a series of consultations on regulations which provide technical proposals to support the law set out in the Building Safety Act 2022.
The proposals provide further detail on how the law will operate and be enforced. The responses to these consultations will be used to help develop the content of regulations before they are laid in Parliament.
Read or take part in DLUHC consultations.
As HSE gets ready to carry out the duties of the Building Safety Regulator (BSR) we will also be asking for your views on some of the new building safety laws and regulations.
We will provide further information on how and when you can take part in these additional consultations in the next edition of this newsletter.
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On Thursday 8 July the Rt Hon Greg Clark MP was appointed as Secretary of State for DLUHC. On Friday 9 July, Lord Greenhalgh minister for building safety and fire safety stepped down from his role following the Prime Minister's resignation from his position as Conservative Party Leader.
Following his appointment, Levelling Up Secretary Greg Clark announced that contracts to finalise cladding remediation have been sent to major housebuilders to be signed within a month.
Read the announcement on contracts for remediation
Last week, DLUHC published a series of guidance and a digital tool for leaseholders to explain how they are protected by new laws in the Building Safety Act.
View the leaseholder protections guidance
Finally, UK Finance, the Building Societies Association and the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors have issued a statement to support the leaseholder protections within the Building Safety Act coming into force.
Read the statement from industry on leaseholder protections
The British Standards Institution (BSI) has published three new standards setting out competence requirements for safety management within the built environment.
These include competence frameworks for the newly regulated roles of Principal Designer and Principal Contractor.
Find out more about the new competence standards on BSI's website, where you can register your details to download free copies.
Last month we published some further information on safety cases for high-rise residential buildings.
Published in the form of five guides, the ‘toolbox’ is designed to assist with preparing safety cases and users can pick and choose which documents are most relevant and helpful to them.
Access the safety case ‘toolbox’
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For further information and resources available to help you prepare for the introduction of the Building Safety Regulator and the new building safety regime in England, visit our building safety webpages.
We’ve produced some shareable email banners, social graphics and factsheets for you and your organisations to use at events and to encourage your networks to sign-up to this ebulletin.
Access the resources
If you have any questions or comments, ideas or suggestions, please share and email us at BSR-Communications@hse.gov.uk
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