What is the Building Safety Act?

The Building Safety Act is based on Dame Judith Hackitt’s final report in 2018 following the Grenfell disaster.  The Act significantly changes the industry approach to designing, constructing and managing buildings in England and Wales (in-part) by:

• creating a Building Safety Regulator
• improving competence and oversight of the whole construction industry
• driving industry culture change and incentivising compliance
• providing a stronger, clearer oversight framework for construction products
• defining “higher risk buildings” and creating powers to regulate their design, construction and operation
• where applicable, giving residents a stronger voice in the system
• where relevant, establishing additional protections for leaseholders in relation to remediation costs
• extending scope of the Defective Premises Act 1972 to improve routes to redress for past actions.

It creates new statutory duty holders with responsibility for managing structural and fire safety risks in order to demonstrate to the new Building Safety Regulator that buildings are safe to construct and occupy.

The Building Safety Act gained Royal Assent and became law in April 2022 and is being utilised to bring in to force secondary legislation to reach the goals set out above. The latest update to legislation came in to force on the 1st October 2023, this amended the Building Regulations for all building projects and delivers the framework for higher-risk buildings.

Changes to the Building Regulations

How do I prepare for Building Safety Act changes?