New Fire and Building Safety Regulations

This section is information specifically for Leaseholders including responsibilities, project plans, budget and financial information, the lease, mandatory and testing reports, insurance, reports on building and fire safety, etc.

The tragedy at Grenfell Tower has radically changed all UK fire safety regulations

As you are aware, the government has introduced a number of far-reaching and detailed safety requirements for high rise buildings. These are also sometimes referred to as ‘higher risk buildings’ because the higher the building, the greater the risk of death.

We will not copy out here every clause of every regulation, not only because they are very long and complex, but they are in a constant state of amendment. We give here the core essentials. The full explanation of the regulations are contained in a fairly easy-read document called “Fire Safety in Purpose Built Blocks of Flats Guide-update” posted on this website. This document is scheduled for update in 2024.

We are required to advise you of any change to these regulations and any change in our development or safety documents. We will post information here and via other methods.

The Building Safety Act 2022, known as the Building Safety Bill, introduced some new legal duties relating to
high-rise buildings and residents’ safety.

Higher Risk and Medium Risk Buildings

- Buildings over 18metres tall, or with 7+ storeys, now count as
  High Rise Buildings/Higher Risk Buildings (“HRB”)

- Buildings over 11metres tall, or with 5+ storeys, now count as Medium Rise Buildings/Medium Risk Buildings (“MRB”).

Both categories bring in much more stringent new fire safety regulations.

with the exception of Swallow Court,
all our blocks, meet the 11m regulations, Medium Risk
Drake, Berwick and Kingfisher meet the 18m regulations Higher Risk

What do the new Fire Safety Regulations mean for Berwick Court Development?

Responsible and Accountable Persons

Every building has to identify the person(s) legally responsible for ensuring the fire safety and reporting regulations are met and published. For the Berwick Court development that RP/AP is Berwick Court Management Limited, i.e. the directors of BCML

The table below itemises the new regulations and what to what category of building height they apply.

For a full copy of the Building Safety Register check list, see Regulatory Items in the link below:

Regulatory Item Draft document download

Resident Engagement Strategy

The Health & Safety Executive (HSE) has introduced a legal requirement for all High Rise and Medium Rise buildings to have a Resident Engagement Strategy (RES) to be in place and available/ to all residents aged 6 years and over.be they leaseholders or tenants.

One of the issues that arose from the Grenfell enquiry was the fact that residents had been highlighting safety issues for a number of years that were ignored by the landlords and that could have prevented such a huge loss of life.

One of the key functions of the new RES is to provide a platform where residents can communicate with the ‘Accountable Person’ (in our case, the directors of BCML), confident that their voices will be heard and acknowledged.

To satisfy this function, we need people to step up to be part of a new mandatory Resident Engagement Team to be contact points for all residents and coordinate feedback to the directors.

PLEASE be one of those people

The RES also includes the requirement for a Personal Emergency Evacuation Plan (PEEP) questionnaire to be issued to every resident to determine where physical assistance might be needed to make a safe evacuation. Anyone who identifies as needing assistance will then complete a PEEP document and details will be made available to emergency services.

All these things take time to put in place and get organised, but once up and running, time commitment should be minimal.

Resident Engagement Strategy Draft Document