It is now more than five years since the Grenfell Tower tragedy and four since the subsequent Hackitt review, which triggered a wave of government legislation to address building safety in the UK. But, while the government’s Building Safety Act received royal assent in April, there remains huge uncertainty about the details of the process for getting new buildings signed off as safe – and increasing concern about the legal bust-ups that could result.

Under the coming regulatory regime, a building safety regulator sitting within the Health and Safety Executive will assess higher-risk new buildings at three “gateway” points to ensure that  safety requirements are met at each stage of the design and construction process. While the first gateway was introduced by planning reforms last August, gateways two and three – both stop/go points in the process – were introduced by the Building Safety Act and, according to the government’s timeline, will both come into force by October 2023 at the latest.

The secondary legislation outlining the details of each gateway has yet to be finalised, but eight such documents were published by the government in draft last autumn, before being withdrawn from circulation.

Philip Pamment, director at CPC Project Services, who was previously involved in advising the government on building safety, said that the principle that detailed records should be kept and carefully checked was not controversial among most within the industry.

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