Agenda item

Mark Norris, Principal Policy Adviser, introduced item five, updating members on building safety developments since its last meeting. Mark noted that work has been picking up pace after the election. A written Ministerial statement was expected that week, and was likely to cover the issue of fire doors, and height issues regarding ACM cladding, with the thresholds for looking at issues expected to be lowered from 18 metres to 11 meters, and to remove any height thresholds for buildings with ACM Category 3 cladding.

Regarding private sector remediation, the funding deadline for bids had closed at the end of December. Officials have received a number of applications, but there are some question marks about how serious some owners are about undertaking the work, despite having submitted bids.

The Joint Inspection Team had completed its sixth inspection the previous week, with five out of six focusing of the buildings identified as having category one hazards. Mark noted how the inspections have highlighted the intersection with building safety legislation, and how to ensure that designers and others working on a building don’t impact on compartmentalisation of it.

Mark informed the Board that the Government has asked councils to find out what is on the side of every high rise residential building in England. Government recognised that this would be challenging for councils, with an estimated 11,500 such buildings in England and some London boroughs having as many as 1,000. The LGA has suggested ways that Government could support councils on this, for example including a clause within the Fire Safety Order requiring building owners to inform the fire service or council what is on the side of their buildings, including safeguards to force owners to do so.

The Board noted the case where a council had decided to instil sprinklers on all council properties but failed in its attempts to charge leaseholders for this, after a tribunal ruled that this was improvement rather than repair so couldn’t be recharged, and asked what implication this has if Government decides to legislate on this? Mark responded that the government is currently consulting on the issue of a height threshold for installing sprinklers on new build properties, with a view to potentially reducing this from 30m to 18m. However, this would only apply to new builds or major refurbishments.