Building safety in London

Although the responsibility to ensure homes are safe lies with the national Building Regulations, the Mayor has used his planning powers to go further and ensure fire safety is considered from the earliest design stage.

For the first time, the London Plan 2021 requires all development proposals to achieve the highest standards of fire safety to ensure the security of all building residents and users. The London Plan 2021 also introduces policy requirements for developments to be designed to incorporate fire evacuation lifts suitable for people who require level access, including those with disabilities and the elderly.

The Mayor has published pre-consultation London Plan Guidance to provide initial information on how to implement London Plan policy on fire safety.

The Mayor is using his influence to ensure that standards of fire safety in new buildings in London are higher than in the rest of the country. Procurement through the London Development Panel (LDP2) and delivery supported with funding from the Affordable Homes Programme 2021-26 – must now meet stringent building safety standards that go above and beyond the national Building Regulations. Other programmes must follow these standards as detailed in the relevant funding guidance.

The Mayor’s Building Safety Standards for new build development are as follows:

1. All new buildings must include Automatic Water Fire Suppression Systems (AFSS).
2. The Building Regs 2010 (as amended) require control over combustible items in the external walls of relevant buildings. All new buildings/conversion, refurbishment or remodelling of existing buildings/acquisitions funded by the GLA should apply those combustibility restrictions regardless of their height. More specifically, external walls of all buildings (of any height) should contain only materials of Class A2-s1, d0 or Class A1 in accordance with BS EN 13501-1:2007+A1:2009. Please note that in practice this means that buildings should adhere to Regulations 7(1), (2), and (3) of Approved Document B only. The definition of ‘relevant building’ detailed in Regulation 7(4) does not apply – all buildings without exception are considered ‘relevant buildings’ by the Mayor of London.
3. All new buildings to include water supplies for firefighting in accordance with Water UK’s national guidance document.
4. Developers must register any in-built electrical products such as white goods (doing so will pick up any recalls). Developers must also encourage residents to register any white goods which the residents themselves bring into their new homes.
5. Information about product registration, product recalls and electrical safety should be included in the resident’s pack/manual for all new homes. (This is in line with Total Recalls and NFCC/LFB electrical safety headline messages).

The Mayor’s Building Safety Standards for the conversion, refurbishment, remodelling or acquisition of existing homes are as follows:

2. The Building Regs 2010 (as amended) require control over combustible items in the external walls of relevant buildings. All new buildings/conversion, refurbishment or remodelling of existing buildings/acquisitions funded by the GLA should apply those combustibility restrictions regardless of their height. More specifically, external walls of all buildings (of any height) should contain only materials of Class A2-s1, d0 or Class A1 in accordance with BS EN 13501-1:2007+A1:2009. Please note that in practice this means that new buildings should adhere to Regulations 7(1), (2), and (3) of Approved Document B only. The definition of ‘relevant building’ detailed in Regulation 7(4) does not apply – all buildings without exception are considered ‘relevant buildings’ by the Mayor of London.

4. Developers must register any in-built electrical products such as white goods (doing so will pick up any recalls). Developers must also encourage residents to register any white goods which the residents themselves bring into their new homes.

5. Information about product registration, product recalls and electrical safety should be included in the resident’s pack/manual for all new homes. (This is in line with Total Recalls and NFCC/LFB electrical safety headline messages).

Standards 1 and 3 do not apply to conversion, refurbishment, remodelling or acquisition of existing homes supported with funding by the Mayor.

For homes delivered as conversion, refurbishment, remodelling or acquisitions, partners will be expected to undertake reasonable endeavours to assure themselves of the project’s compliance with Standard 2. They must document the steps taken in a Statement of Reasonable Endeavours. 

The GLA reserves the right to review completed Statements through the annual compliance audit process.

GLA Housing and Land has published a best practice guidance document to support landlords and managing agents in responding to leaseholder requests for External Wall System 1 (EWS1) forms.

The EWS1 best practice guidance is intended to improve and standardise approaches to EWS1 across the London housing sector. It is expected to act as a critical point of reference for social landlords, private landlords, and managing agents to adequately support leaseholders in need of an EWS1 certificate to complete mortgage, lease and staircasing negotiations.

Over the past two years, increasing numbers of leaseholders have required External Wall System (EWS1) forms to negotiate mortgages or leases. In early 2021, GLA research found that standards in responding to and facilitating EWS1 requests vary considerably across landlords in London’s housing sector. The research also found that there were significant opportunities to improve how landlords responded to and managed leaseholders’ requests for EWS1 forms, principally around communications.

These findings prompted GLA Housing and Land to convene an EWS1 Task and Finish Working Group to identify best practice landlords could follow to improve the experience of leaseholders who needed EWS1 certificates for their buildings.

The Task and Finish Group’s work has concluded with the publication of this EWS1 best practice guidance document, which has been informed by the experience of leaseholder groups, delivery partners and other key stakeholders in the housing sector.

The GLA is administering government funding programmes to remediate London buildings with unsafe cladding, including:

• the Social Sector ACM Cladding Remediation Fund
• the Private Sector ACM Cladding Remediation Fund
• the Building Safety Fund for the remediation of unsafe non-ACM cladding systems
• the Grenfell Assisted Home Ownership Scheme (GAHOS).