The Future of Building Regulations and Fire Management

Over the past 12 months, the UK’s Building Regulations have increasingly come under scrutiny. An Independent Review of Building Regulations and Fire Safety was commissioned by the Government with the intention of making recommendations on the future regulatory system. However, what the review was looking

at and what the construction industry felt it should be looking at, which to many, were different things.

To try and understand what the construction industry wanted from the review, being led by Dame Judith Hackitt to consider, the Business Sprinkler Alliance (BSA) organised a question time panel debate. Entitled ‘The Future of Building Regulations and Fire Management’ the debate was delivered in conjunction with Building magazine.
The debate was held after the interim report had been published but before the final report had been published. It looked at what needed to be done to improve our regulations in anticipation of the imminent publication of the independent review.

As the industry awaited the report from Dame Judith Hackitt the panel addressed the key topics of:
Chaired by Building Magazine’s Technical Editor, Thomas Lane, speakers included:
To support the debate and provide further insights, market research was commissioned to ascertain opinions from the wider construction industry. The research was conducted before and after the final report was published and showed a distinct difference between what the industry was expecting and hoping the report to cover, and what the final report actually did.

• What the Hackitt report could mean for the industry
• How regulations and guidance should change
• How to design for building resilience, across industrial, residential and

  commercial schemes

• Jane Duncan – RIBA Immediate Past President
• Iain Cox, Chair – Business Sprinkler Alliance
• Tom Roche – Senior Consultant, FM Global
• Steve Cooper – Director, Tenos

The findings of both surveys along with the debate write up that appeared in Building magazine along with a summary of the research that also appeared in Building, are included on the following in this report.