What does the UK’s Building Safety Act mean for the industry?

The UK’s Building Safety Act was given Royal Assent in April 2022, with secondary legislation following throughout 2022 and 2023.

Since then, the UK construction industry has been grappling with its implications – with early movers attempting real-world applications of the new rules.

The UK’s Building Safety Act 2022 represents a significant shift in the design, construction, and management of buildings.  

The Act was in part a response to the 2017 Grenfell Tower tragedy, in which 72 people died in the fire in the high-rise tower block in West London. The Act seeks to ensure that the safety of future building occupants is placed front and centre of the building control process. 

The Act’s requirements are wide-ranging and impose new obligations on all construction projects and duty holders. In this article, we will focus primarily on cost and programme issues for ‘higher-risk buildings’.  

Higher-risk buildings are broadly defined as buildings containing at least two units of accommodation in England, or one unit of accommodation in Wales, that are either 18 metres or higher or contain seven or more storeys.  

An overview of the new regime for higher-risk buildings 

One of the key changes under the Act was the creation of a Building Safety Regulator (BSR), part of the Health & Safety Executive. The BSR’s key functions include overseeing safety and standards in all buildings and acting as the building control authority for higher-risk buildings.   

To obtain building control approval, higher-risk buildings must now pass through three BSR ‘gateways’.

Gateway 1 is at the planning approval stage; the second, design-focused (‘Gateway 2’) prior to starting on site; and Gateway 3 prior to occupation, to ensure that compliance with the building regulations is being achieved.  

The gateways act as hard stops at key stages in the lifecycle of a construction project, requiring specific information to be submitted and approved by the regulator before the project can move forward or obtain its completion certificate.

This has particularly significant implications at the Gateway 2 design stage – with designs needing to be approved prior to work starting on site.  

Change control in higher-risk buildings 

Change control is therefore a key issue to consider from a cost and programme perspective when implementing the new rules.  

Following Gateway 2 approval, most changes which alter the approved design must be notified to the regulator.

Changes requiring BSR involvement are split into two groups: major changes, and notifiable changes. For a major change, the BSR will need to approve the change prior to it being implemented. The period for reviewing and approving the change is six weeks.  

Given these additional interactions with the BSR, it is highly likely that in the short term, clients will want to minimise any changes that occur after the submission of Gateway 2. This is likely to factor into the procurement route decisions taken at the outset.   

How will the Building Safety Act affect construction programmes? 

One of the Building Safety Act’s biggest impacts is likely to be that typical project programmes will extend.

In addition to the Gateway 2 approval period – and the loss of overlap between early on-site works packages and the end of the design stage – there are further programme considerations to consider.      

For example, the level of control the employer has over contractor start on site may have an impact on programme. The employer may not be able to give the instruction to commence until they have obtained gateway approval (depending on the length of any demolition or enabling works at the beginning of the programme).  

This could potentially add several weeks to the programme – and possibly longer-term delays, depending on the contractor’s ability and availability to mobilise.   

Completion and handover may also be impacted. In larger schemes, groups of apartments or floors are typically completed and handed over early, prior to completion of the overall building.

The available guidance suggests that such handover strategies will no longer be suitable. Accordingly, clients will need to factor in higher hold costs at the end of the project, as earlier completed units will not be able to be handed over until the entirety of the building is signed off.     

Addressing the long-term benefits

While there are undoubted cost implications for developing projects under the new regime, the less-discussed upside is increased value.

Assets which can demonstrate full compliance with building safety standards will be more attractive not only to eventual occupants, but also to investors in search of high-quality assets.   

We may see a shift in the building ownership market over time because of the duties now in place under the Act. It is possible ‘light touch’ ownership may disappear, as the implications of the various duty holder requirements become more apparent. 

Similarly, the Act’s ‘golden thread’ requirement should also improve the quality of handover and as-built documentation. The payback – both from a safety and economic perspective – should be significant in the long term.  

This is an abridged version of an article that was first published in Building magazine. You can read the full article and download the cost model here.