This is a “living” document, so it will be updated by BCML’s Board to record past projects and provide a summary of upcoming ones.
This area of the website is intended to be your main “Go To” place for information, in addition to communications you receive via the directors or the managing agent.
Our main focus in the near future is going to be Fire Safety and Building Safety. Many of these items arise from the new stringent legislation following the Grenfell Tower fire tragedy. This is additional major expenditure that no-one could have foreseen nor budgeted for, and has meant a significant rethink on how we, BCML, review our funds and our spending. We cannot do everything at once, so we have to prioritise projects, which results in some of the “nice to have” things that were forecast, have had to be postponed.
General Health & Safety items
Our managing agent and our health and safety consultant are overseeing remediation of items flagged in the 2020 Fire Risk Assessment (available via the Leaseholders’ Portal) as well as additional things which are impacted by changes in legislation.
In 2022 the fire extinguishers in the car parks were replaced with new ones and emergency lighting was also upgraded.
Regular testing has been introduced on all mandatory areas under a Planned Preventative Maintenance programme (“PPM”). The timetable and results for these checks are available on the website under ‘Routine Safety Check Reports’ and will be regularly updated.
Fire Safety Works
Berwick Court was registered as a High Rise/Higher Risk Building on 29th September 2023 Registration reference is HRB 14401C1B6. This means we must adhere to new fire safety and building safety regulations.
Fire Doors Project - Communal Areas
In January 2023 new rules came into force which require all communal doors in hallways and corridors (including the meter cupboards) and all individual leaseholder flat entrance doors to meet minimum fire safety standards. The communal doors must be checked every three months and flat entrance doors checked once a year.
Excel Fire Consultants were commissioned to carry out an inspection across the development. 168 doors in total need remedial maintenance or replacement.
Works are due to commence end April 2024
Total cost of works = £200k + VAT = £240k.
Section 20 Notice: The second Section 20 Notice was issued on 6th April 2024.
Fire Doors Project - Flat entrance Doors
The new fire safety regulations require individual flat entrance doors, which are fire doors, to be checked every 12 months. Although there is no obligation on BCML to undertake these checks, since it is the first occasion of such testing we have engaged a certified consultant to carry out the checks at the same time as the other communal area fire door works
Emergency Lighting & Signage works
The current Emergency Lighting installation is maintained by CBC across the development. They have advised that this needs to be upgraded to new compliance standards. The placement of signage also needs reviewing:
- Fire Exit signs are not all correctly located
- We are required to have signage in car parks to show which door gives access to which building, showing lift and stairs access; all of which need to clearly visible through smoke or in the dark.
- New ‘Wayfinding’ signage for emergency services is required on each floor in the three High Rise blocks (Drake, Berwick and Kingfisher) : this is floor numbers and flat directional signage.
Automatic Open Vents (AOV's)
In simple terms, AOVs are the system that mean communal hallway windows that are in the same ‘compartment’ as a flat door entrance open automatically if smoke is detected. This helps to ventilate and extract smoke from the building. They exist for fire safety reasons.
Some of our AOVs are reaching their physical end-of-life, with replacement parts becoming difficult to source. New regulations mean that, technically, our AOVs do not comply with the latest compliance standards. However, they are operational as originally designed and repairs to faulty AOVs take place on an ongoing basis, allowing us to delay our need to replace over a number of years. But given how critical AOVs are, we must replace the system as it starts to fail.
Total replacement cost approx. £500k. This will require a Section.20 notice
Compartmentation/Fire Stopping works
Compartmentation is the process of dividing a structure into ‘compartments’ for effective risk management. Each compartment is reinforced by fire-resistant materials (fire stopping) or by installing measures such as fire doors or cavity barriers. It is a highly critical element of buildings’ fire safety for several reasons, including:
- It stops fire, heat and smoke from spreading rapidly through a building.
- It protects occupants seeking to evacuate or stay put in a building
Fire Stopping and Compartmentation issues especially in Kittiwake need remedial work.
Est cost £60k
We may be eligible for remediation costs (SRT) from the original building company, Bellway, to cover all or some of costs for defective construction work. We are liaising with Bellway and we need to provide a full FRAEW report to them to evidence the fire stopping defects.
Balconies
One of the major changes of building and fire safety regulations post-Grenfell is that balconies are now considered to be part of the external wall system and, therefore, come under tighter fire safety regulations.
Although we have a valid External Wall System certificate (EWS1 certificate) to April 2025, the EWS1 has been upgraded and replaced by a new regulation: FRAEW (Fire Risk and External Walls). The Board decided to commission the new HSFRA (Health and Safety Fire Risk Assessment) to take place in April 2024 alongside a new FRAEW. This gave us a clearer understanding of what needs to be done so we can plan better for the immediate future.(see separate document for more information on FRAEWs)
The FRAEW was held in May 2024 and the Fire Engineer has considered our balconies not to need replacing for now. However, when replacing decking on balconies you must now use an A-rated (fire safety compliant) material. We are taking advice on the choice of materials you can use.
If you are thinking of replacing your balcony decking, we advise you not do not do anything immediately until you have sought advice from Warwick Estates on the material to use..
We are aware that some financial institutions and estate agents still demand evidence of the EWS1 certificate. Despite what they may say, we have no need for this and the letter from TRI fire engineers confirms this and should be the only evidence that is needed.
Building Safety and Maintenance works
Roof
We have a history of longstanding roof leaks across the development.
Accessing the roof to inspect reported leaks generally requires extensive (expensive) scaffolding, which is why sometimes it take a little time to start repair works after a report of a sign of leak.
Additionally, while the recent works to the Drake Court roof have been progressed by obtaining emergency exemption from the Section.20 process by the courts, we can only make such applications in case of emergency and future works will generally require a full Section.20 process (which takes 3-5 months from commission to appointing a contractor); the legislation is such that we cannot avoid taking this step where costs of works reach the Section 20 threshold limit.
We are commissioning a report from Trevaskis on the overall state of our roofs and the costs for any repairs/replacement works.
Lifts
Our lifts are nearing end-of-life and a replacement programme needs to be considered.
We are advised that an ‘enhanced maintenance programme’ should extend life and delay full replacement, which can then be staggered over next seven years. We are giving this serious consideration.
Door Entry System
The video/buzzer door entry systems in our blocks are ageing and starting to fail. (e.g. most of the video/buzzers no longer work in Berwick Court). The system in Kittiwake Court was replaced in April 2021 at a cost of £7,375 – for 5 floors.
Podium / Roadway
The repair works to this area of the Development was forecast to take place in 2024-26 – it will involve replacing the waterproofing under the roadway/flowerbed and installing additional drainage. It will mean re-laying the driveway tarmac. It needs careful but urgent consideration to avoid deterioration of building structure. Definitely a Section 20 process
Est cost £250k
Other Projects
Optical Fibre Network
There have been some requests from tenants to allow Hyperoptic to install fibre across the development.
There are many issues involved here including the Wayleave agreement which would need to be reviewed by a competent legal authority. Hyperoptic have indicated that they would be prepared to underwrite the (reasonable) costs involved.
As work would involve piercing of the external walls, (fire stopping issue), we are still considering this for the future.
Internal and External Decorations
Since the Development was built in 1999, we have completed two rounds of full decoration of all internal areas (the last in 2015) and one of external decorations (2013/14). During 2021-22 the caretaker repainted all internal hallway walls and several external handrails. It was originally planned to undertake our next round of full external decorations and painting of woodwork internally during 2023-24, but the changes in fire/H&S rules in recent years means we need to delay decoration until after the compliance-related works complete.
Typically planning for such a large-scale project takes 12-24 months (including the tendering process) and 6-15 months to complete.
Carpets
We have recently replaced threshold areas with a hard- wearing, dirt trapping carpet.
In the longer term we are considering ground floor and lift floor carpets to be replaced as these have the most wear. The design and quality of the carpets should be consistent with floor coverings across each block.
Garden
Shallow soil depth (less than 30cm) means the beds dry out very quickly in the warm weather and need constant watering. An irrigation system put down some years ago is not efficient. Watering by hand is time-consuming and expensive in water costs.
Organic bark mulch had been used for the past five years but is very expensive and disappears quickly needing replacement every year.
Whilst inorganic ‘mulching’, such as decorative gravel, is undesirable for many reasons, we are researching a higher ‘one-off’ cost, with reduced water use, but which retains a pleasing visual effect
Conclusion
We hope you have found this document informative. Whilst it is never going to be possible to achieve everything overnight, the breadth of experience and skills that we now have in the BCML Board means that we can start to put together a strategic vision for the future of the maintenance and ongoing improvement of the development.
In summary, the Board of BCML’s key focus will always be to balance and to prioritise:
- maintenance of what we already have
- Keeping ourselves informed on new techniques, materials, technology, etc. to be able to introduce new things or upgrade what we have, whilst knowing when to replace things when they are beyond repair.
- staying up to date on current regulatory matters and legal obligations to ensure that the Development is compliant
- ensuring that the way in which we maintain the site is as cost-effective as possible, that the contractors we engage match our standards and expectations and always researching the most effective or more cost-effective way to achieve things.
- Ensuring the service charge level is sufficient to maintain a good standard, which will also maintain the property values.
We hope that this document gives you an insight into how we manage projects. If you would like to have your say in how things are done, then please do join us as a director.