Out-Law News 1 min. read
01 Aug 2017, 4:55 pm
The review will be led by Dame Judith Hackett, who chairs manufacturers' organisation EEF. It will look at current building regulations and fire safety with a particular focus on high rise residential buildings and will report jointly to communities secretary Sajid Javid and home secretary Amber Rudd.
The review will examine the regulatory system around the design, construction and ongoing management of buildings in relation to fire safety, related compliance and enforcement issues and international regulation and experience in this area.
Hackett will consult the Buildings Regulations Advisory Committee – which advises the government on changes to building regulations – as well as the construction and housing industry, the fire sector, international experts, MPs and the public.
More detailed terms of reference will be published later this summer after the terms of reference for the public inquiry into the Grenfell Tower fire have been agreed. The review will present an interim report before the end of 2017 and a final report no later than spring next year.
The government also published results of the first large scale tests into building cladding systems, carried out as a result of the Grenfell fire. These latest tests simulate a tall building and allow experts to understand better how different types of cladding panels behave with different types of insulation in a fire.
The first system tested, a wall cladding system using an aluminium composite material (ACM) cladding with unmodified polyethylene filler and foam insulation, failed the test which is set out in current building regulations guidance.
The government has written to all local authorities and housing associations to outline funding arrangements for fire safety. The government expects that building owners will fund measures designed to make a building fire safe and will draw on their existing resources to do so.
Fire safety issues came under scrutiny earlier this year during a Crown Court hearing into a fire at Lakanal House in Southwark after which Southwark Council was fined £570,000. Health and safety expert Kevin Bridges of Pinsent Masons, the law firm behind Out-Law.com, said at the time that the fine could have been even higher if fire safety cases were covered by health and safety sentencing guidelines.