High-rise registration offers chance to improve homes and rebuild residents’ trust

The registration of occupied high-rise residential buildings with the Building Safety Regulator over the next six months is going to focus minds on the job to be done.

The term “re-cladding” is just scratching the surface. The works can go a lot deeper – and so does the cultural change required by the Building Safety Act. A new emphasis on organisational and individual competence will lead to a safer industry and safer residents.

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When it comes to the physical works needed, we have long since realised that the aluminium composite material cladding used on Grenfell Tower was just one of many failings that could help fire to spread. Not all those elements are easy to replace. Substitute mineral insulation for flammable phenolic foam, for example, and you will need to design in more space for it.

For some of the estimated 12,500-plus buildings that will need to be registered with the Building Safety Regulator, understanding how fire might spread and whether there are any structural risks before putting together the required building safety case will require the structure to be opened up. Some landlords are bound to find unpleasant surprises.

If you are going to the expense of scaffolding a 20-storey tower, and inconveniencing residents in the process, then you are likely to have other improvements you can make at the same time

Part of the complexity of this remediation work is in the opportunity it presents. If you are going to the expense of scaffolding a 20-storey tower, and inconveniencing residents in the process, then you are likely to have other improvements you can make at the same time. Or the opportunity might be in advancing policy goals on net zero.

At the same time as Camden council remediates five tower blocks on the Chalcots estate in north London, it has taken the opportunity to replace windows too. There is no denying that the residents are inconvenienced, but there is some compensation in the improved homes they will be left with afterwards.

The main question is whether you have the budget for a more comprehensive programme – and this is an area where social landlords tend to be well prepared. A programme of planned works can be brought forward in the interests of a big cost efficiency.

Costs will nonetheless be a serious issue at a time of high inflation and continuing shortages of labour and some materials, especially when there is pressure on everyone to make up for lost time and get the work done. Contractors need to plan ahead so that they can go deep into their supply chains to secure materials – sometimes the raw materials – from a supplier of a supplier of a supplier.

Offer a pipeline of work and the contractor can build up reliable relationships with the supply chain and negotiate economies of scale

For that reason, partnership arrangements based on frameworks are likely to be far more effective at getting the job done promptly and controlling costs than posting the remediation of one block on a procurement portal. Offer a pipeline of work and the contractor can build up reliable relationships with the supply chain and negotiate economies of scale.

Scale brings benefits in sustainability too. There is more time for the contractor to carry out their own consultation with the community on how the job should be done. With a series of projects, they can offer meaningful career development to local people. And systems can be put in place for recycling.

With all the remediation work taking place across the UK over the next few years, there is potential for a massive boost to capacity in the recycling industry and to the circular economy. As we start recycling the glass of the draughty and inefficient windows we are removing, for example, we provide material for manufacturers to produce new window glass with a high recycled content, saving raw materials and energy.

You cannot blame the residents of these buildings if they have a pretty low opinion of the construction and development industries, but we do have a chance now to show how the job should be done and gradually rebuild trust.

We do not have all the detail of the new building safety regime yet – there is a lot of secondary legislation still outstanding – and there are still weaknesses in product assurance of materials on the market. This is where competence and continuous improvement really come into play.

The industry’s work on cladding remediation will spread skills and capacity, as well as that essential culture change

The Building Safety Act requires us to establish competence from before building works starts and include everyone that works on a building site. If specified components or materials are no longer available, there is a change control procedure for sign-off. And the “golden thread” of information requires us to record, store and make accessible key information on a building as a digital record.

The bigger picture is the capacity that this creates for a real estate industry that needs to repurpose and retrofit the buildings that will still be standing in 2050 and beyond. We need to get into the habit of disassembling, rather than demolishing, and the industry’s work on cladding remediation will spread skills and capacity, as well as that essential culture change.

Claire Tribe is facades director at McLaren Construction. She is currently responsible for the recladding and refurbishment of 644 apartments in four 23-storey blocks on Camden council’s Chalcots estate in north London. The works include the replacement of 24,000 sq m of cladding and 3,496 windows while around 3,500 residents remain in their homes.