62 | Sector Focus: Timber in Construction
SUMMARY
■The Building Safety Act was discussed at Futurebuild
■The BSA is an outcome of the Hackitt report on building regulations and fire safety
■The period in which retrospective claims can be made under the DPA is extended to 30 years
A STEAMROLLER OF REFORM
A Structural Timber Association roundtable discussion at Future Build addressed the Building Safety Act, described as the biggest regulatory change for UK construction in 40 years. Mike Jeffree reports
The
www.gov.co.uk website is generally not prone to hyperbole in descriptions of new legislation. But it bills the Building Safety Act (BSA) as making “ground-breaking reforms to give residents and homeowners more rights, powers and protections …. so homes across the country are safer”. The BSA was given royal assent last year and over the next two years a raft of associated Statutory Instruments (SIs) follow. For the construction industry and its product suppliers it makes for a colossal ask. There’s a huge amount of information to absorb and new obligations to adapt to and comply with. Some feel the sector on the ground is still not aware quite how far reaching the Act is and that many businesses are not ready for it. Hence the new legislation was the topic of a Structural Timber Association (STA) roundtable discussion during Futurebuild, attended by STA members and representatives of other building industry bodies and associated sectors.
Construction Industry Council (CIC) chief
executive Graham Watts, gave a blunt appraisal of industry preparedness for the Act and the urgency of getting heads around it. “The wider industry is frankly not aware of what’s coming down the track, which is a steamroller of change to the regulatory processes in construction,” he said. “And it’s not in 10 or five years’ time, it’s now.” Alongside the 2021 Fire Safety Act, the
Above: Andrew Carpenter: the STA and the rest of the industry is increasingly focused on improving skills and competence
TTJ | July/August 2023 |
www.ttjonline.com
BSA is an outcome of the Grenfell Tower fire disaster, the subsequent Hackitt report on building regulations and fire safety and, in part, outrage that inhabitants of other
buildings adjudged unsafe faced paying for remedial work on their homes.
Business law firm Norton Rose Fullbright (NBF) describes the BSA as ushering in the “biggest swathe of regulatory changes to the UK built environment since the 1984 Building Act”.
NBF picks out a range of key changes made by the BSA to obligations and responsibilities of construction, design and management duty-holders. “Alarmingly” for developers, contractors and building sector consultants, NBF says, it extends the period in which retrospective claims can be made under the Defective Premises Act (DPA) to 30 years – and the DPA has been broadened to cover refurbishment works as well as new build. The BSA also introduces a new “cause of action”, enabling retrospective claims to be brought against construction product manufacturers and suppliers where products are mis-sold, found to be inherently defective, or are in breach of construction product regulations.
A particularly stringent regime comes into force for buildings over 18m/six storeys. For these, duty-holders must maintain a ‘golden thread’ of ‘digitally captured’ information about building design, build and management throughout the building’s lifecycle. The BSA creates three new bodies to provide oversight of the new regime: the Building Safety Regulator, the National Regulator of Construction Products and the New Homes Ombudsman. “Together these [regulatory] changes mean owners will manage buildings better, while
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