The Building Safety Bill is currently going through parliament and although there are many details to be resolved significant change is coming, positive and negative. I would be interested in the forums thoughts.

The bill is a framework law allowing for multiple pieces of secondary legislation. This is in response to Grenfell and will result in a new Building Safety Regime that will cover all multi-occupied residential buildings. The new regime will place great emphasis on dutyholders, gateways, golden thread, competence and building product certification.

There are significant differences in England to that in Wales. Currently in England the majority of the Building Safety Regime will only apply to buildings over 18m high. However in Wales it covers all multi-occupied residential buildings. Those buildings less than 18m high will be subject to a less rigorous regime and will include:-

• Flats above commercial units
• Blocks of flats
• Houses converted to flats
• HMOs
• Offices converted to flats
• Major refurbishments of the above

The Bill allows the scope to be extended in England.

There are two phases mentioned, the Design and Construction Phase and the Occupation Phase. There are significant impacts for Building Owners in the Occupation Phase as it is likely to be retrospective, which would create a massive workload of remediation of existing buildings to comply.

Similar to the CDM 2015 regulations there are to be five Duty holders during the Design and Construction phase. These are the Client, Principal Designer, Designer, Principal Contractor and Contractor. However where a duty holder is a legal entity, there must be a single accountable person at board level who can be identified as having responsibility for building safety.

There will be a Gateways system, some of which include “hard stops”, where work or occupation cannot continue without evidence that building safety is being appropriately managed. There is a requirement to gather, distribute and maintain a Golden Thread of information.

The Occupation Phase has one controlling dutyholder, the Accountable Person. They can appoint a Building Safety Manager or carry out their duties themselves.