CIEH welcomes the Building Safety Bill

CIEH has welcomed the publication of the Government’s Building Safety Bill and the announcement of a new chief inspector for building safety. The inspector will lead the new national regulator of building safety, which will be established in response to the Grenfell Tower fire.

Buildings in scope of the new regime will be those that are 18 metres or six storeys and higher, although there is a commitment to review the height of ‘high risk’ buildings after a couple of years of operation of the new national regulator.

Tamara Sandoul, Policy and Campaigns Manager at CIEH said:

“We very much welcome the Building Safety Bill. The new national regulator for the safety of buildings should be established as soon as possible to ensure that another fire like Grenfell does not happen again. It is now a full three years since the Grenfell tragedy so it’s good to finally see new legislation being proposed to ensure that a new safer system can be up and running soon.

The new regulator should work closely with local authorities and environmental health departments, who will be inspect many buildings for different reasons. We hope there is effective information sharing that goes both ways and good coordination between different regulators to ensure that all buildings are made safe as quickly as possible.

High risk buildings are defined as being 18 metres or 6 storeys and above. Whilst these are undoubtedly the most risky buildings, which should be prioritised for safety checks, we have long called for all multi-occupied buildings to be in scope of the new regulator and building safety regime. Buildings converted into flats without meeting building regulations can be without fire separation and thus present a serious risk to occupiers. We need to ensure that all of our buildings are made safe going forward.”