The built environment professions must work together to tackle the new Building Safety Bill ‘juggernaut’ to build trust and respect through better competence, appropriate insurance and smarter procurement.

So said former RIBA president and RIBA Expert Advisory Group on Fire Safety Jane Duncan at a technical competency briefing on the subject run by NLA before Christmas following publication of the draft in July and the Hackitt review response to the Grenfell Fire – over three years ago.

Duncan was presenting after Andrew Alexander, assistant director, building safety strategy at the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government had outlined the major work programme and changes he said were intended to ‘save people’s lives and make people feel safe in their homes’. 

The catalyst had been the 72 people who died at the 24-storey Grenfell, said Duncan, but there were concerns over the pace of action since. 

Fire has no respect for people or the complexity of regulations, building heights or sustainability, so was it enough that the new regulation only deals with high rise flats, Duncan asked. Indeed, Duncan added, can material suppliers be trusted, given some of the coverage of the Grenfell inquiry. 

The RIBA wants a ban on combustible materials on cladding, alternative means of escape and sprinklers and automatic fire suppression systems as they have in Wales, and is supportive of the proposal to create a new Building Safety Regulator, and Health & Safety Executive as its regulatory body. But it stresses that there should be clear duties for all those involved, and everyone should have equal responsibility, added Duncan, with the Bill applying to a wider range of buildings. ‘This is a once in a generation opportunity’, she said, added that permitted development schemes are a particular area of concern. Quality is often lost due to value engineering, but fire safety must be maintained: ‘It’s called value engineering; it's not called cost-cutting’, Duncan said. ‘We should be making sure that we're engineering better value buildings, not cheap rubbish that leaves a bad legacy’.

The session also heard from Peter Caplehorn, chief executive of the Construction Products Association on the implications for the construction industry, and a sector that works across 24,000 companies. Some 78% of construction products used in the UK are made in the UK, he said, and of the remainder, two-thirds come from Europe. The last 50 years have resulted in a lack of quality checking and increasing lack of regulatory understanding, as well as a drive towards least cost, quickest time, and a push to deregulation, said Caplehorn. 

Regulations are not there to be achieved, they are there to be exceeded, he added. ‘This is about rethinking how we undertake work in the whole built environment’.