Learning the lessons of Grenfell Tower: time to address Building Control
If a report in today's Sunday Times is correct, building control inspectors have continued after the Grenfell Tower disaster to approve new residential skyscrapers in which the homes on a number of floors can only be reached by one staircase.
Planning law in Britain has two elements: development control, the process for giving planning permission, is seen as a non-professional matter which may if the relevant authority so decides be determined by politicians. Building control, however, which is mainly about safety, has seen as a professional matter which is entirely delegated to experts and in which politicians do not interfere.
Up until now I have always been happy with that division of responsibility. No matter how strong their electoral mandate on matters of general policy, it would not be sensible to allow councillors or ministers who may have no training whatsoever in the relevant disciplines over-ruling professionally qualified experts to decide that an actual or proposed building is safe when the experts say it isn't. Or, I have always considered in the past, vice versa.
However, when the rules appear to be allowing, perhaps requiring, the professionals to make decisions which seem to fly in the face of common sense, it is perhaps high time we had another look at those rules. I still don't think that a politician should ever be able to say "this is safe" of something that the professionals think is dangerous. But perhaps there should be some circumstances where the politicians can at least ask "Are you absolutely sure about that" when the professionals say something is safe.
At least some fire safety experts argue, and some other countries' fire safety rules mandate, that residential buildings above a certain height must have more than one staircase to all floors. If the UK's current guidance on Building Regulations does not apply that rule, I hope that DCLG will have another look at that as a matter of urgency, and not wait for the outcome of the Grenfell Tower inquiry.
Planning law in Britain has two elements: development control, the process for giving planning permission, is seen as a non-professional matter which may if the relevant authority so decides be determined by politicians. Building control, however, which is mainly about safety, has seen as a professional matter which is entirely delegated to experts and in which politicians do not interfere.
Up until now I have always been happy with that division of responsibility. No matter how strong their electoral mandate on matters of general policy, it would not be sensible to allow councillors or ministers who may have no training whatsoever in the relevant disciplines over-ruling professionally qualified experts to decide that an actual or proposed building is safe when the experts say it isn't. Or, I have always considered in the past, vice versa.
However, when the rules appear to be allowing, perhaps requiring, the professionals to make decisions which seem to fly in the face of common sense, it is perhaps high time we had another look at those rules. I still don't think that a politician should ever be able to say "this is safe" of something that the professionals think is dangerous. But perhaps there should be some circumstances where the politicians can at least ask "Are you absolutely sure about that" when the professionals say something is safe.
At least some fire safety experts argue, and some other countries' fire safety rules mandate, that residential buildings above a certain height must have more than one staircase to all floors. If the UK's current guidance on Building Regulations does not apply that rule, I hope that DCLG will have another look at that as a matter of urgency, and not wait for the outcome of the Grenfell Tower inquiry.
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