The Housing Forum has supplied evidence, gathered from across our membership, to the House of Lords Industry and Regulators Committee’s Inquiry into building safety regulation and the Building Safety Regulator.
We see strong support from across our membership in ensuring that buildings are safe. The instigation of the Golden Thread that was brought in via the Building Safety Act has been widely welcomed and will help improve decision-making on the maintenance of higher-risk buildings.
We are, however, aware of a great deal of problems associated with the Gateway process that the Building Safety Regulator is operating. There are widespread concerns that a risk-adverse and under-confident BSR is leading to inconsistencies and serious delays. Critically, if applications do not contain sufficient information to gain approval, or need amending, the BSR must engage with applicants and provide feedback so that the application can be amended. Without this, applicants feel that they having to second-guess what is required. Our members report that applications are often rejected with minor non-technical issues present, which could easily have been resolved via an effective exchange of correspondence or a face-to-face meeting.
Meanwhile, the delays to building new homes mean that families remain in overcrowded homes, and people remain homeless presenting huge, measurable and known damage to their health and their safety.
You can download our response in full here: HoL – Inquiry into building safety regulation – input from The Housing Forum
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A Quality Home for All
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