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Introduced as a response to the Grenfell Tower inquiry, the Building Safety Act 2022 aims to make the entire building construction process safer. The Act primarily focuses on residential buildings over 18 meters in height, or 7 Storeys, classed as Higher-Risk Buildings, requiring several compulsory safety measures, including building a secondary staircase and appointing an accountable person to oversee safety.
However an update of the regulations in 2023, means the act has been expanded to include buildings below 18 meters in height. This change aims to ensure that a wider range of residential buildings are subject to rigorous safety standards.
In this article, we’ll share seven ways the design process for smaller buildings has changed. Let’s get started.
Since 1 October 2023, a defining element of the Building Safety Act is the responsibility on Clients, Designers and Contractors to be competent to ensure compliance with the Building Regulations for all new “building work” (as defined in the Building Regulations) in England, regardless of height or use class.
As a client, you must make suitable arrangements for planning, managing, and monitoring a project so it complies with all relevant requirement, amongst your duties are, to:
Section 156 of the Building Safety Act makes a number of amendments to the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005 to improve fire safety in all buildings regulated by it. The new regulations aim to enhance collaboration and coordination between responsible persons, impose stricter requirements for recording and sharing of fire safety information, and creating a continual record throughout a building’s lifespan, and make it easier for enforcement authorities to take action against non-compliance.
To assist there are three new fire safety guides that are aimed at small non-domestic premises or small blocks of flats, along with updated fire risk assessment checklist to help responsible individuals understand and meet the new requirements.
The Responsible Person has a duty to make sure that a suitable and sufficient fire risk assessment is completed, and to ensure compliance it is recommended that for most buildings to appoint a professional Fire Risk Assessor.
One of the most significant changes coming out of the Building Safety Act is for building control professionals to be assessed, certified and registered with the Building Safety Regulator (BSR), essentially the Building control profession is to become regulated, meaning that the job title ‘Building Inspector’ will be protected in law, and applies to individuals within Local Authorities and those working for Approved Inspectors (or Registered Building Control Approvers), creating a more cohesive approach to applying the legislation.
This fundamental change to the Building Control Inspectors role, along with the requirement for all duty holders to provide a signed declaration of compliance, will increase awareness and regulatory scrutiny on construction safety, and is bound to encourage higher safety standards across all types of buildings.
This works from both a safety and a financial standpoint. Designing safe buildings has always been a priority for developers and Architects, and the Act lays down robust guidelines to follow no matter how tall their construction may be. However, it also makes economic sense for the developers to follow one set of rules rather than having separate safety standards for different building types or heights. While conforming to higher safety standards also boosts a building’s marketability.
Even if it’s not legally required, given the declaration that is now required from all duty holders, you can expect clients and Architects to include additional precautionary safety features to their work, especially if they’re designing mid-rise residential buildings. For instance you may see more new buildings with extra staircases, more means of escape or other safety features.
The same is true for the materials Contractors will use, with a more cautious approach most likely. There will be much more emphasis on non-combustible and limited-combustible materials. While materials that have been shown to pose safety risks in the past should be phased out altogether.
One of the main aims of the Building Safety Act is to make the construction industry more accountable for safety in the design process, with named people responsible for overseeing the safety of a project, and creating a register of Higher-Risk Buildings (HRB) with the relevant regulators.
While the introduction and requirements of “The Golden Thread” for buildings over 18m to maintain a comprehensive record of all Construction information and change logs, which is similar to, but a more in-depth version of the Operation & Maintenance Manual, as previously required, will almost certainly become the standard requirement for all projects.
Even for buildings not covered by the Act, this focus on safety throughout the process is bound to have an impact. Whether it’s architects incorporating safety features in their designs at the start of a project, owners investing in more compliance monitoring to ensure safety standards are always met, or anything else in between, the Act is sure to reshape the way we construct new buildings, whatever their size.
Currently, non HRB and buildings under 18m are not strictly covered by the Act, but who knows what the future holds? There’s every chance future Governments might want to expand the Act to cover different types of buildings.
Part of the Act requires owners of high-risk buildings to register with the Building Safety Regulator and provide information on safety standards throughout the building’s life. It’s certainly possible that at some point low rise buildings will also be included, and when those owners need to make changes to enhance safety, without implementing the more restrictive regulations from the outset these changes could be inconvenient and expensive.
Even if your construction project is currently low-risk, you don’t want to be forced to make costly changes further down the line. Therefore, it makes sense for architects to design with higher safety standards in mind at the very start of the project. Look at it as an investment.
Whatever the size of your construction project, it always makes sense to design with safety as a top priority. It’s the right thing to do from a moral and economic perspective.
Sure, it takes a lot more work and possibly cost, especially given the new Building Safety Act, but it always pays off in the end.
To find out more about Harvey Wright Architects, call 020 3239 6044 or visit hwarchitects.co.uk.
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