Latest / Built to Perform / Fire Doors, Gateway Delays and What Building Safety Looks Like in Practice | Built to Perform Amy Farr

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Fire Doors, Gateway Delays and What Building Safety Looks Like in Practice | Built to Perform Amy Farr · Built to Perform

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: There were more deaths relating to fires with defective self-closers than from fires of external cladding.
• 0:08
  SPEAKER_01: Say you got a really cheap, cost-effective solution to a problem which is causing big risks to occupants.
• 0:17
  SPEAKER_01: But you can't do the works until the gateway process completely.
• 0:21
  SPEAKER_01: This should make people furious.
• 0:24
  SPEAKER_01: Simple remediation, simple solutions to risks are being held back.
• 0:30
  SPEAKER_00: We have heard of people that are stuck in these apartments.
• 0:35
  SPEAKER_00: They can't move out, they can't sell.
• 0:37
  SPEAKER_00: Everything we design should be built to work and to do what it does.
• 0:42
  SPEAKER_00: We've got to start adopting modern technology.
• 0:44
  SPEAKER_00: That is the only way we're going to be able to effectively manage our buildings properly.
• 0:49
  SPEAKER_00: So for me, I think Building Safety Act ties in really, really uh closely with that phrase, built to perform.
• 1:00
  SPEAKER_01: Hi Amy, and welcome to Built to Perform Podcast.
• 1:04
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks for having me, James.
• 1:05
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you for coming on and giving us your time.
• 1:07
  SPEAKER_01: Really appreciate it.
• 1:08
  SPEAKER_01: So gonna dive straight in and just rather than going back and hearing your whole history as to probably selling sweets from the playground to doing what you do now.
• 1:19
  SPEAKER_01: How did you end up in building safety and construction compliance?
• 1:23
  SPEAKER_00: Well, everyone grows up wanting to be in compliance, don't they?
• 1:26
  SPEAKER_00: No.
• 1:27
  SPEAKER_00: So um I was working for a construction company just to make some money whilst I was at uni.
• 1:33
  SPEAKER_00: And I remember saying, if I'm still doing this in a year, like that is it, I'm gonna quit.
• 1:38
  SPEAKER_00: And then sort of 15 years odd later, I'm still here and now a partner at the UK's largest independent property consultancy.
• 1:48
  SPEAKER_00: So it's gone away that I never expected it to go.
• 1:52
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but I specialised in health and safety and construction-based health and safety for quite a long time.
• 1:57
  SPEAKER_00: And then following Graham Fell and the Instruction of the Building Safety Act, there was just such a need for people to understand the regulations, be able to translate that and into real terms.
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_00: Um and so I just moved, sort of stood a sidestep from health and safety into building safety, um, where I now look after health and safety, building safety, fire safety, structural safety.
• 2:19
  SPEAKER_00: So it's not it's not been something that's um been too closed at the moment.
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_00: But yeah, it's uh been an it seems to have been a natural progression and transition from one side to the other almost.
• 2:32
  SPEAKER_01: So what what brought you into the construction industry in the first place then?
• 2:36
  SPEAKER_00: Well, it was just like I say, it was I was just trying to earn a little bit of money whilst I was at uni and it was something that was um like a job that was local.
• 2:43
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 2:44
  SPEAKER_00: And I got I just got transfixed into into what we could do for local communities.
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_00: And uh at the time, the the organisation that I was working for did a lot for the the local housing association, local councils.
• 3:00
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so I was seeing decent homes going through and um community centres being built, works for local um hospitals, and so I saw the benefit of the sort of small works and what that meant to lots of people, and it's just sort of gone from there.
• 3:16
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, nice.
• 3:18
  SPEAKER_01: So no family, nothing is just just literally earn some money and now you're you're stuck in it.
• 3:24
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
• 3:25
  SPEAKER_00: Like I say, 15 odd years later, um, I'm still I'm still in the industry.
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_01: Um and how has that kind of shaped the way that you'd now look at buildings, kind of your history with regards to health and safety, construction compliance, building safety act?
• 3:41
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I suppose always focusing on CDM and working with big design teams to reduce and eliminate risks during the early um construction uh design phases.
• 3:54
  SPEAKER_00: I could I could sit in a team of people and they they'll show me some lovely glossy photos of like CGIs of what we're going to produce, and then you know, some great big, wonderful plans.
• 4:04
  SPEAKER_00: But I could see the practicalities or the impracticalities of what was being designed and how that would affect the people living in those buildings from a simple thing of how does someone actually clean that window?
• 4:16
  SPEAKER_00: And I know that sounds so minor, but these are these are the challenges that people face when they're when they're living in in these assets.
• 4:22
  SPEAKER_00: And also for organisations that don't have an unlimited budget for cleaning and maintenance, you know, how we are going to use products that are going to stand the test of time, um, how things are going to be serviced, maintained in a way that actually is safe and meets a client's budget.
• 4:42
  SPEAKER_00: So I see I see that sort of side.
• 4:45
  SPEAKER_00: And then as I've now progressed into building safety and I'm looking at again the implications of the products that we're that are being specified on on the big schemes, um, not just not just a brand new glossy building, but also the remediation that works that we're doing and aesthetic upgrades.
• 5:03
  SPEAKER_00: Um so that's where my um previous experience now translates into to building safety that we've got to have a product at the end of the day that meets the needs of the people who are living in there and meets the needs of the asset owners to be able to actually keep them up to standard for the rest of their life cycle.
• 5:24
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and I think from my my early experience as well, um building swaying side of things, one of the things which I quickly learnt around people, how people specify these residential units, especially in high rise, etc., is sometimes they're not also taking into account, say, the emotional part of owning being part of that that high rise.
• 5:49
  SPEAKER_01: People want a great example is I saw a lot of people swapping out their front doors, which are fire doors for front doors which would look like their front door and a house because they want it to look like their home, etc.
• 6:03
  SPEAKER_01: So it's it's also how people design stuff as well to hit those emotional needs of which people have from living in space to also the compliance side, I guess.
• 6:14
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 6:14
  SPEAKER_00: And you do see a difference in a block that is designed for social rented or you know, for social housing.
• 6:23
  SPEAKER_00: Um and then, I mean, I've worked on some major superprime resie and obviously worlds apart, as you can imagine.
• 6:31
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, but I've also seen it on those some of those superprime resi where they might have, you know, like a million pounds off of fixtures and fittings that on day one they get ripped out and they bring in what they want.
• 6:42
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so people naturally are going to change what they've got.
• 6:46
  SPEAKER_00: But I've heard horror stories, and like I say, being in the sort of building safety world, where asset owners have gone to do an annual check, and they'll found they found that the tenant has decided to go open plan.
• 6:58
  SPEAKER_00: So they have removed all doors, knocked down some walls, we've got um light fittings and um like electrical uh sockets hanging from the ceiling, those sorts of things where they've just done their changes to suit themselves.
• 7:12
  SPEAKER_00: Actually, that has massively um impacted the fire integrity of their compartment, of their of their flat.
• 7:18
  SPEAKER_00: Um, even see things like if you were to put a super heavy um TV on your wall with a bracket, you and you're going through those two layers of plaster board, you have breached the fire compartmentation of your flat.
• 7:32
  SPEAKER_00: And you what you're doing then affects your neighbours.
• 7:35
  SPEAKER_00: I would not want to have injury or loss of loss of premises or you know, potentially death on my conscience because I've done something in my house or apartment, etc.
• 7:48
  SPEAKER_00: But I don't know if every well, people don't understand the consequences of of what they're doing, they just they just don't.
• 7:53
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, they they're just looking at the emotional part of this is my home and yeah, and I'll do what I want in it.
• 8:00
  SPEAKER_00: That's not when people when people sign up to their leases, that's not what the lease says.
• 8:05
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly.
• 8:07
  SPEAKER_01: So, like you said, you're now leading the building uh safety and construction compliance at Workman.
• 8:12
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, what does that role involve in practice?
• 8:16
  SPEAKER_00: It involves answering a million questions a day, really.
• 8:19
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm really lucky that I've got some great people in the team, and we're we've we're split into a couple of different sort of streams, really.
• 8:27
  SPEAKER_00: So we've got a people um a team who are managing um building safety for occupied buildings for our clients.
• 8:35
  SPEAKER_00: So we're doing building safety case reports, we're managing mandatory occurrence reporting, which is something that we've seen an exponential rise in more than we expected.
• 8:43
  SPEAKER_00: Um, resident engagement strategy, that sort of thing.
• 8:46
  SPEAKER_00: So we are supporting asset owners with their obligations um on their occupied HRBs, and they lots of our clients are starting to mirror that across their wider portfolio, which is really good.
• 8:56
  SPEAKER_00: Best practice coming down.
• 8:58
  SPEAKER_00: HRBs paying sorry, high-risk buildings, which are uh buildings in England that are 18 metres or seven stories, whichever comes soonest, and have at least two residential units within them.
• 9:08
  SPEAKER_02: Yep.
• 9:08
  SPEAKER_00: So if you think of it like a student accommodation block, a a sort of uh purpose-built residential apartment block, and then some of my clients have um sort of HRBs by accident, so they might be a major commercial building that's got a couple of penthouses on, so they've they've ticked the box or two residential, and when they bought that asset, it may not have they it might not have been much of a consideration about high right high-risk buildings and the safety of residents.
• 9:40
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so that's that's kind of one stream.
• 9:42
  SPEAKER_00: And then we've got a a growing um CDM team.
• 9:46
  SPEAKER_00: So your standard CDM principal designer, client CDM advisor, site inspections were going out and and monitoring what the contractors are doing.
• 9:54
  SPEAKER_00: Um so that's again, that's something that we we sit alongside our internal design teams and our external sort of major project design teams to provide that sort of independent oversight.
• 10:05
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and then the the biggest part of my team's role is supporting clients to identify their building safety defects, so they're carrying out fire risk appraisals of external walls, um, fire door and compartmentation surveys, and then advising the client what that means, what the project's gonna look like, what the programme is, but ultimately what the cost is gonna be.
• 10:30
  SPEAKER_00: And some of that goes through um the gateway process.
• 10:33
  SPEAKER_00: So if you've got a high-rise high-risk building, those works will then need to go through the building safety regulator for approval rather than your standard building control, which as we all know takes a huge amount of time.
• 10:44
  SPEAKER_00: So we've got kind of three three different streams um in the team at the moment.
• 10:48
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but the majority of my time is Amy, I've got this issue, what's the answer?
• 10:54
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, luckily, between myself and the rest of the SLT now in our building consultancy team, we generally come up with the answer.
• 11:02
  SPEAKER_00: And if we don't, I've definitely got a few legal friends that I call up on a regular basis.
• 11:05
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 11:06
  SPEAKER_01: And was there a particular project role or moment where you you realised this was the area you wanted to specialise in?
• 11:13
  SPEAKER_00: I don't I don't think there was a there was necessarily a project, but I've I've I've worked on lots and lots of major regeneration schemes.
• 11:22
  SPEAKER_00: So I've seen, you know, 900 or 1800 units go up in in quite a small area, multi- like um multi-level blocks, multi-block developments.
• 11:32
  SPEAKER_00: And now I look back and I think, did we do everything we should have done at that time?
• 11:39
  SPEAKER_00: And whilst they were glossy, did we consider, I say we, the royal we here, especially the the can the contractors working on these, did we prioritize quality over safety?
• 11:52
  SPEAKER_00: And I I've had quite a few conversations with principal contractors who have argued with me that the um the emphasis on health and safety on site took over their day job to the point where quality has been compromised.
• 12:10
  SPEAKER_00: And, you know, I'll argue until I'm blue in the face that that shouldn't be the case.
• 12:14
  SPEAKER_00: And even if you have got obligations to keep everyone on your site safe, you still have obligations to make sure you've done what you're paid to do.
• 12:22
  SPEAKER_00: You haven't value engineered out all of the things that we put in and that the designers have put in to make sure the building meets building regs, and that there's there's no excuse for them, for anyone to have you know constructed and then signed off to say they were happy with what they'd done for a building that now is not fit for purpose and poses significant risks to the residents that live there.
• 12:44
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm hoping that myself and a lot of people in this industry accept that there are, you know, there's been failings at all levels.
• 12:52
  SPEAKER_00: Um and now I'm just taking that that hopefully my experience and my passion for for making our building safe can can sort of ring through and we start to see improvements you know from again from all levels, from client side all the way down to the subcontractor going in and you know installing a new boiler.
• 13:11
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 13:12
  SPEAKER_01: And so you've mentioned um your role basically is you answering questions basically or getting fired questions uh at high speed.
• 13:23
  SPEAKER_01: But when people hear building safety and compliance, people often think paperwork, right?
• 13:28
  SPEAKER_00: And then what does the job actually involve a lot a lot of the job does involve paperwork, let's be honest.
• 13:37
  SPEAKER_00: We and say again, the industry, we need to have this audit trial to prove that what we have done is correct.
• 13:44
  SPEAKER_00: So, from my clo my client's point of view, they want an audit trial that from the time the building was constructed, it met building regs at the time.
• 13:56
  SPEAKER_00: And if it doesn't now, why not now?
• 13:58
  SPEAKER_00: If it didn't then, how do we go about rectifying it and making sure that it it is up to scratch?
• 14:04
  SPEAKER_00: So we are seeing this huge sort of audit trial of what of what we've got, where we've got it, when we did it, who did it, why they did it, etc.
• 14:13
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that having that accountability around all of that is really gonna be the the you know the pivotal point as to we are getting things right now because no one wants to put their name on something where they know it's incorrect or where they're unsure that what they did was right.
• 14:31
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so we do do a lot of audits and sort of retrospective audits, and we'll order audit other property managers or asset managers to see what they've done and where when they've done it, why they've done it.
• 14:45
  SPEAKER_00: Um so there is there is a lot of that, but I'd like to think that the majority of our advice is practical and it's about getting these buildings to a to a standard rather than getting any paperwork in order.
• 15:00
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, exactly.
• 15:01
  SPEAKER_01: And also, you know, standards change, right?
• 15:04
  SPEAKER_01: And so what might be the right thing to do now, people might look back on and go, why the why the hell did we do that like that?
• 15:11
  SPEAKER_00: Yep.
• 15:12
  SPEAKER_00: Well, we're seeing that now, aren't we?
• 15:13
  SPEAKER_00: In the with the the Grenfell inquiry and um, you know, even with the recent news about the prosecutions that are coming off the back of that.
• 15:22
  SPEAKER_00: So anyone who sits there one day and they know that something's not right, but they kind of go along with it or try to sweep it under the carpet, just fingers crossed that that cannot happen again.
• 15:36
  SPEAKER_01: And do you think sometimes the industry confuses having the right documents with actually understanding the risk?
• 15:44
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, so there's so many occasions where um we are told that oh, the information's all there, everything's fine.
• 15:53
  SPEAKER_00: And when I go and have a look, it might be a fire risk assessment.
• 15:55
  SPEAKER_00: So it's gone on to some sort of document management system and green because a fire risk assessment was carried out in February 2026 and um it's there.
• 16:06
  SPEAKER_00: Then if I go in and have a look, yes, there is a fire risk assessment in there.
• 16:10
  SPEAKER_00: There's 10 open actions, and there's a moderate risk that the to that the fire risk assessor has has stated.
• 16:18
  SPEAKER_00: Please don't come and ask me in July to sort out something.
• 16:22
  SPEAKER_00: Ask me in February.
• 16:23
  SPEAKER_00: You know, some whoever is receiving those fire risk assessments needs to have the competence to understand what it means, what the risk is, what needs to be done, and when it needs to be done.
• 16:34
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, they're the fire risk assessments.
• 16:36
  SPEAKER_00: I'm using them as an example here, but lots of things are quite prescriptive.
• 16:39
  SPEAKER_00: Again, we're doing lots of structural risk assessments at the moment.
• 16:42
  SPEAKER_00: It's very prescriptive as to what you need to do and when you need to do it by.
• 16:46
  SPEAKER_00: It just relies on a human to say, we're gonna get this done.
• 16:53
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, you're probably gonna tell me there's an AI bot that can do this for us, but but you know, it does, it does rely on having competent people managing a building.
• 17:03
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, well, on on the AI front, I think that's it's all well and good, but it's still is gonna have the same output.
• 17:11
  SPEAKER_01: It's not gonna go and magically make all those things better, is it?
• 17:15
  SPEAKER_01: So, you know, it's still gonna require someone seeing the output of something and actioning it and moving us away from this tick box culture, I guess.
• 17:27
  SPEAKER_01: Which does exist still, I guess.
• 17:29
  SPEAKER_00: Oh definitely.
• 17:31
  SPEAKER_00: And I mean, I work with lots lots of clients when they are um either selling or acquiring new assets, and uh quite often the the information that goes over to maybe the legal team can sometimes seem like a bit of a tick tick box exercise.
• 17:48
  SPEAKER_00: But when when my team start interrogating that the detail of that, and we're telling you know the per the potential purchaser actually that this is gonna be requ you're gonna need to do this in the next uh 18 months, five years, and there's a cost in involved with that.
• 18:02
  SPEAKER_00: Um yeah, this is it can't life can't be a tick-box exercise.
• 18:07
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 18:09
  SPEAKER_01: 100%.
• 18:10
  SPEAKER_01: Um Annan, what do you think the difference is between a building that is technically technically compliant and a building that is genuinely safe?
• 18:20
  SPEAKER_00: Well, again, this goes back to potentially if we don't want to get into too much technical detail, but was it technically compliant at the time it was built?
• 18:30
  SPEAKER_00: So we might have a a building that's you know built in the 70s and the you know the very the very start of you know building regulations coming into into force it may have met the regulations and the the expected standards at the time.
• 18:48
  SPEAKER_00: But if we compare that to today's standards, they are worlds apart.
• 18:53
  SPEAKER_00: And sometimes it is not possible to bring a building like that up the standard.
• 18:59
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I mean we've got we've got quite a few um buildings that we've produced building safety cases for on behalf of our clients.
• 19:07
  SPEAKER_00: And we we feel quite privileged that we've had five um building assessment certificates granted by the building safety regulator off the back of the building safety case report.
• 19:17
  SPEAKER_00: So sorry, there's lots of lots of words there, but you you produce this wonderful document that says your building is safe because.
• 19:23
  SPEAKER_01: And just for people who are not in the know, why would you need to produce a building safety report?
• 19:29
  SPEAKER_00: So every single high-risk building in England has to produce a building safety case.
• 19:36
  SPEAKER_00: The regulator will ask to review a copy of that at some point.
• 19:41
  SPEAKER_00: They've started to review quite a few now.
• 19:44
  SPEAKER_00: And if they believe the information you've got is is suitable and that you are effectively managing your building, they will issue you with a building assessment certificate.
• 19:54
  SPEAKER_00: That's valid for five years.
• 19:55
  SPEAKER_00: There's a cycle, you update your building safety um case report, and we'll send that back to the regulator.
• 20:03
  SPEAKER_00: However, so we've we've got five approved, and we've had a few that have been rejected as well because there are significant issues.
• 20:13
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but even on the five that we've we've had approved, there are a few instances where there are works required to make that building safe, but because we've got appropriate um management arrangements and an action plan of the works to be carried out, the building safety regulator are still issuing us with the building assessment certificate.
• 20:35
  SPEAKER_00: So they they're kind of saying, yes, you are managing your building safely.
• 20:41
  SPEAKER_00: From an insurance or a legal point of view, especially when you're coming to buy or sell, one of the first things that they're asking for is does it have a back certificate?
• 20:51
  SPEAKER_00: So a building assessment certificate.
• 20:54
  SPEAKER_00: And that's a difficult thing to sort of say to some of these clients because the building might not have been called in for the assessment yet.
• 20:59
  SPEAKER_00: And also, just because you've got one does not mean that the building is then inherently safe.
• 21:05
  SPEAKER_00: It is more around the management arrangement.
• 21:07
  SPEAKER_00: So we're also seeing lots of lots of issues where we know there are fire safety issues with the building.
• 21:18
  SPEAKER_00: So we've got a waking watch.
• 21:19
  SPEAKER_00: Fire strategy has been changed.
• 21:21
  SPEAKER_00: We changed it to simultaneous evacuation.
• 21:24
  SPEAKER_00: That's all fine.
• 21:25
  SPEAKER_00: We know that we can hopefully keep the people in that building safe, but it doesn't mean the building itself is safe.
• 21:31
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 21:31
  SPEAKER_00: So it's it all it does rely on management arrangements.
• 21:34
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it's risk management.
• 21:38
  SPEAKER_01: Waking watch is very expensive as well, isn't it?
• 21:40
  SPEAKER_00: It is very expensive.
• 21:42
  SPEAKER_00: Um and a waking watch will say it will hopefully it'll catch a fire and be able to get everyone out, but it won't stop a fire from happening, it won't stop a fire from spreading.
• 21:53
  SPEAKER_00: It won't necessarily make sure that everyone gets out of the building, you know.
• 21:56
  SPEAKER_00: People don't want to listen and knock on like to their alarm and they're not.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_00: On the doors, example.
• 22:02
  SPEAKER_01: And then going back to kind of like live projects, uh, where does building safety most commonly break down?
• 22:08
  SPEAKER_01: Do you think?
• 22:09
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I would I'd say that for the projects that we're working on right now, we are fixing building safety problems.
• 22:19
  SPEAKER_00: For the the sort of larger new projects we're working on, building safety is the at the fore of everyone's mind.
• 22:26
  SPEAKER_00: So I'd like to think we aren't falling down there.
• 22:30
  SPEAKER_00: My big issue with the industry is that there are huge amounts of remediation work to be carried out to make buildings safe.
• 22:38
  SPEAKER_00: And we're looking at, you know, buildings.
• 22:40
  SPEAKER_00: I'm I'm focusing here on 11 metres and up and residential buildings.
• 22:44
  SPEAKER_00: Um there's a lack of uh skills in the industry with regards to building control, with regards to fire engineering and structural engineers, and it's not it's not because they're not good enough, it's just there's not enough people coming through.
• 22:58
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 22:59
  SPEAKER_00: So they're just and they're in demand.
• 23:01
  SPEAKER_00: So we we might have to wait quite a long time to get a survey carried out.
• 23:05
  SPEAKER_00: We might have to wait quite a long time for the the most competent principal contractor to come and do these works.
• 23:10
  SPEAKER_00: But where we are carrying out works to a high-risk building, we've got to go through the gateway process, which, as for anyone who doesn't know, on an existing building, the building safety regulator has eight weeks to review and approve your applications.
• 23:28
  SPEAKER_00: In real terms, it's taking between 44 and 60 weeks for works to go through.
• 23:35
  SPEAKER_00: So you've got a uh, you know, a residential block that needs some fire compartmentation repairs and fire door repairs.
• 23:46
  SPEAKER_00: You could be waiting a whole year for the regulator to tick that off, and then you get on you get on site.
• 23:53
  SPEAKER_00: So every day that that is delayed, that is people going to bed at night unsafe.
• 23:58
  SPEAKER_00: But the regulator have produced, uh have created uh an innovation unit.
• 24:02
  SPEAKER_00: So for new build developments of high high-risk buildings, um, they've got a special special department who are focusing on getting those ones approved first.
• 24:12
  SPEAKER_00: Obviously, that meets the hopefully it meets the government's gender of building 1.5 million new homes.
• 24:18
  SPEAKER_00: I'm sure that's why they're doing it.
• 24:19
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 24:20
  SPEAKER_00: But my argument is at that point, it is a hole in the ground, no one's living in it, there's no risk.
• 24:27
  SPEAKER_00: Could we please focus the attention on what could potentially be minor repairs and works that need are needed on an existing higher high-risk building to make sure those residents are safe?
• 24:39
  SPEAKER_01: Really, what we've got is the government doing tick box exercises as to this will help us meet our promises, our targets, but actually there's a much bigger issue behind the scenes, which needs remedying.
• 24:52
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, we you've you've probably seen it, and for those listening or watching, um there's been a move away from building high-risk buildings because of the delays, viability.
• 25:06
  SPEAKER_00: Do you know it's just you're you're just sitting on this design and this land for such a long time before you can realise any any return on it.
• 25:15
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so we are starting to see more of the single-family housing sort of model coming through.
• 25:22
  SPEAKER_00: So there are there are plenty of houses being built around the country, and you know, it might not always be where it's really needed.
• 25:29
  SPEAKER_00: I'm sure, I'm sure it doesn't hit that.
• 25:32
  SPEAKER_00: But there's there's lots of activity in in the market.
• 25:36
  SPEAKER_00: There's there's lots being built.
• 25:40
  SPEAKER_00: As long as it's being built safely, and the people in in, you know, who eventually live there are happy and comfortable and safe, and then that's all that matters.
• 25:48
  SPEAKER_00: But so less, I'd I'd like to see a bit of a change, a shift to getting um through the backlog of applications, gateway applications for um existing HRBs.
• 25:59
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 25:59
  SPEAKER_01: And how big is that backlog, do you know?
• 26:01
  SPEAKER_00: They've not produced any, they're not, they're not publishing any um statistics on it at the moment.
• 26:06
  SPEAKER_00: So this is one thing that we um we we're kind of waiting on.
• 26:11
  SPEAKER_00: So if someone wants to do a freedom of information request, that'd be great.
• 26:15
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but we we we know that there are a huge amount of applications going in, but we're not being told how many have been approved, rejected, or how many are just sitting in the ether waiting for um an assessor to be to be assigned to it?
• 26:31
  SPEAKER_01: That's good, isn't it?
• 26:32
  SPEAKER_00: I'd love to have a statistic for you, but I don't, unfortunately.
• 26:35
  SPEAKER_01: No, no, no.
• 26:36
  SPEAKER_01: Um so on on building safety, how much of it is technical and then how much of it is, you know, communication, coordination, and behaviour?
• 26:48
  SPEAKER_00: Um again, there's there's a different streams.
• 26:51
  SPEAKER_00: So when we're looking at a remediation scheme, we've got to be incredibly technical, my opinion.
• 26:58
  SPEAKER_00: We need to make sure that we are understand exactly what the makeup is, whether it's external or internal, we need to know exactly what is there.
• 27:06
  SPEAKER_00: Does it meet the fire strategy?
• 27:08
  SPEAKER_00: Does the fire strategy and the original design actually meet the requirements?
• 27:13
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and then again, when we when we're moving that into a project, making sure that the design team, and generally employed by a DMB contractor at that point, do they have the right level of competence?
• 27:25
  SPEAKER_00: Is their technical detail correct?
• 27:27
  SPEAKER_00: So we part of our team, we also do technical monitoring where we're we're keeping an eye on that.
• 27:32
  SPEAKER_00: So, and that's through the design and then and then what's built out on site.
• 27:37
  SPEAKER_00: Then if you're thinking about the way it works on an occupied building, there's a huge amount of reliance on communication.
• 27:45
  SPEAKER_00: So whether you've got one um operator in a building, let's just say it's a student accommodation block, knowing that that student operator is going to communicate the right information at the right time up and down.
• 28:00
  SPEAKER_00: So to the principal council person, so the the entity that is responsible for that HRB, but then also down to you know John and Jenny who living flat one and two on the ground floor, um, how how the communication piece goes goes both ways.
• 28:17
  SPEAKER_00: I think giving practical advice and trying to support our clients to interpret the regulations is is is really important.
• 28:27
  SPEAKER_00: And there's the Building Safety Act, it seems to have been written as if you are building a brand new social housing block.
• 28:37
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 28:38
  SPEAKER_00: It doesn't account for the nuances of of a large uh portion of our clients' portfolios where they are say mixed use or you know HRBs by accident.
• 28:48
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 28:48
  SPEAKER_00: Um so being able to break that down, explain it, I think is is a really key key thing.
• 28:55
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 28:56
  SPEAKER_01: And for you, what does a good client do differently when it comes to building safety?
• 29:02
  SPEAKER_00: We I think we're really lucky in that we we do have some excellent clients who are really being forward-thinking on their approach to building safety.
• 29:13
  SPEAKER_00: The best clients I'm working with right now are they they're seeing beyond HRBs.
• 29:18
  SPEAKER_00: They're looking at following the sort of best practice and the principles of the Building Safety Act across all of their assets.
• 29:25
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 29:26
  SPEAKER_00: I think having the information on the buildings, understanding it, knowing what needs to be done is is one of the most um one of the most pivotal, pivotal things that we're seeing at the moment.
• 29:40
  SPEAKER_00: The use of golden thread principles, so golden thread being a digital storage of information on your asset throughout the building's life cycle, again, from design all the way through to eventual demolition, having that information to hand and being able to share that and the right people having access to it at the right time is vital.
• 30:09
  SPEAKER_00: We feel like we're just getting to a point where we understand it enough that we can educate our clients on what it means and the benefits of using it.
• 30:19
  SPEAKER_00: So I've got a couple of clients who are starting to roll this out across the board, which is great news and great news for everyone who's working on those assets.
• 30:28
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but it's not not cheap.
• 30:32
  SPEAKER_00: And it you know, it does take a bit of time to set up, and it takes a lot of buy-in um to be able to roll that out.
• 30:40
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I've got clients who are incredibly proactive on identifying risk, getting projects off the ground and closing it out as well.
• 30:47
  SPEAKER_00: And so that's that's what we want to see.
• 30:49
  SPEAKER_00: Um the the you know, that a poor client would be one that knows there's issues, but are just trying to figure out a way to model through.
• 31:00
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm quite lucky that we we don't have to work with people like that.
• 31:04
  SPEAKER_00: But I'm sure there'll be lots of people who face that challenge.
• 31:07
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, um, but sometimes there just is no money to do the work.
• 31:11
  unknown: Yeah.
• 31:12
  SPEAKER_01: And obviously the Building Safety Act has changed the language of the industry, um, but has it changed the behaviour yet?
• 31:23
  SPEAKER_00: I'd say it's changed the behaviour from the client and the design side.
• 31:30
  SPEAKER_00: I've not got enough hands-on experience of what's being built on site anymore.
• 31:35
  SPEAKER_00: And I think with the high-profile cases and some big names that have gone into administration over the last couple of years, I'd like to think that the construction industry and you know, those those sort of principal contractors that you know, the sort of tier ones bordering onto tier twos, that they are improving.
• 32:01
  SPEAKER_00: But you know, I I I was probably about 12 months ago, I was asked to review um some handover information, and I was looking through some some photographs, and I thought that that doesn't look right.
• 32:15
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not a fire door installer, I'm I don't put I've never put in compartmentation.
• 32:19
  SPEAKER_00: So then, you know, sharing it with a team who who are more hands-on, more practical in that in that respect, have got that experience.
• 32:26
  SPEAKER_00: And the you know, for for someone like myself, there were obvious obvious red flags, and then when it goes to the technical team and they have that absolutely that's not that's not compliant, you know, has has that been signed off?
• 32:39
  SPEAKER_00: Um so there are still instances where in my opinion there are there are failings.
• 32:44
  unknown: Yeah.
• 32:45
  SPEAKER_01: And do you it's going back to that communication bit, I guess, but an ed and education, isn't it?
• 32:51
  SPEAKER_01: It's you're you might be set you're setting the rules up here, but is that being communicated, is that in the right way, and educated in the right way to the people who are actually doing the work on a day-to-day basis?
• 33:06
  SPEAKER_00: Well, like you say, the rules might be up there, but they the enforcement is is not there, is it?
• 33:12
  SPEAKER_00: No.
• 33:12
  SPEAKER_00: And the regulator are focusing their enforcement on the people who own and have created that risk.
• 33:20
  SPEAKER_00: So they're going to be going straight for the principal council person or or for the principal contractor.
• 33:25
  SPEAKER_00: But actually, it's it's that subcontractor that's been let loose and quickly closed something up because they didn't want anyone else to see it.
• 33:32
  SPEAKER_00: But it's been signed off now and it's it's it's gone.
• 33:35
  SPEAKER_00: So I don't think it's it's percolating all the way down to where it really needs to.
• 33:40
  SPEAKER_00: I don't think there's enough accountability um and say in enforcement.
• 33:46
  SPEAKER_00: I'd like to see more competency um frameworks and um accreditations for different trades.
• 33:58
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 33:59
  SPEAKER_00: So that makes it a little bit easier when you're selecting your contractors.
• 34:02
  SPEAKER_00: And also um if if if a if a company was signed up to an accreditation and they're getting an independent check from someone as part of their annual membership, that would also give us all a lot of comfort that things are being done correctly.
• 34:16
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, agreed.
• 34:17
  SPEAKER_01: And but it's you know, you've only got to look at historically with the with the industry, it's it's really hard.
• 34:28
  SPEAKER_01: It is really hard to police.
• 34:29
  SPEAKER_01: You it's having eyes on everybody throughout the whole project is near on impossible.
• 34:36
  SPEAKER_01: You can't you can't always legislate for someone potentially just being lazy or not maybe not knowing what they're supposed to do.
• 34:44
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I mean the the whole thing around supervision.
• 34:49
  SPEAKER_00: So supervision not only looks after well sort of covers health and safety, it also covers the quality of the work.
• 34:56
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 34:57
  SPEAKER_00: And and also that supervision can provide additional mentoring, support, training, etc., to to those operatives who aren't necessarily at the top of their game or you know, fully qualified yet.
• 35:09
  SPEAKER_00: So you need you need to have that, and you need to have that across all levels, whether it's you know, from your site manager on your your 200 unit block all the way down to the site manager, the the site supervisor for the fire door installation.
• 35:23
  SPEAKER_00: You know, it needs it needs to go all the way down.
• 35:25
  SPEAKER_00: And then I don't think there's any excuse for not having enough people, competent people, to to monitor and sign off what others are doing.
• 35:33
  SPEAKER_00: It's imperative, it has to be done.
• 35:35
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, I understand construction costs are through the roof and costs and materials are through the roof, but we can't get to a client's budget by cutting out the the people and the skill set that we really need to make sure that it's delivered effectively.
• 35:53
  SPEAKER_00: And I think there's got to be a little bit of leeway in in in people's expectations of what something costs.
• 36:02
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 36:03
  SPEAKER_01: And then do you think the industry and also the people who are going to be the duty holder fully understand that mindset?
• 36:12
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 36:13
  SPEAKER_00: Um I think duty holder responsibilities under the Building Safety Act.
• 36:20
  SPEAKER_00: Pretty clear when we're looking at a construction project.
• 36:26
  SPEAKER_03: Yep.
• 36:26
  SPEAKER_00: When it comes to managing an occupied building and becoming the principal accountable person or potentially the accountable person, um, I still think that there is a disconnect there between knowing what you actually have to do, where how you sit legally, and how you try to offload that, because that is happening all the time.
• 36:49
  SPEAKER_00: And again, I mentioned the Building Safety Act seems to have been written as if it is, you know, your local council or a housing association that wants to build one shiny block and it's straightforward.
• 36:59
  SPEAKER_00: Actually, so many assets have quite a complex structure, owning structure, and you know, like a pension fund owns the building, and the trustee is someone on Jersey, they've never been to the building.
• 37:16
  unknown: Yeah.
• 37:16
  SPEAKER_00: They may never have looked at a drawing, and that's not necessarily their their job to have done that.
• 37:21
  SPEAKER_00: You know, they are just a trustee, they are managing a huge portfolio of money.
• 37:27
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but then when we sort of I mean, I've sat down with some trustees and explained to them what their obligations are, and there's you know, white faces, like just everyone's like stricken.
• 37:37
  SPEAKER_01: Um has there been anyone that's actually fallen foul of this that is in that sort of remote position yet legally?
• 37:49
  SPEAKER_00: Well well, yeah, there's there's thousands of people that have found themselves in this position.
• 37:54
  SPEAKER_00: None of I don't believe any of those have been prosecuted yet.
• 37:57
  SPEAKER_00: We're away, we're away from that.
• 37:59
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 37:59
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but there could potentially come a day.
• 38:04
  SPEAKER_00: But I imagine that the the regulator will focus on some bigger names first to sort of hit harder when they do start prosecute pro if they do start prosecuting.
• 38:15
  SPEAKER_01: Um is that in the house builder world we're talking about in terms of it?
• 38:19
  SPEAKER_00: I would imagine that they'd be looking at bigger developers, yeah.
• 38:21
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 38:22
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 38:22
  SPEAKER_00: But I mentioned like the single family housing market, you know, we've got some big names investing in massive sums in this industry over the next couple of years.
• 38:30
  SPEAKER_00: And um, I think for this financial year, we're expecting three billion pounds to be spent in the uh in the UK alone.
• 38:38
  SPEAKER_00: So that is big investors doing JVs with smaller developers.
• 38:44
  SPEAKER_00: Great, that's some good money coming in and it helps with cash flow.
• 38:48
  SPEAKER_00: So these these developments should hopefully um be built to program and then and then be occupied, unlike the standard model of how house builders used to work, that they would have to build to demand and then workers could stop because they've only you know sold 50 off plan.
• 39:06
  SPEAKER_00: Um so that that should bring a lot more um speed to to the house building, but it also adds that extra layer of um complexity with who the owning entity is.
• 39:19
  SPEAKER_00: Now, lots of these sorts of things are generally they're not going to be high-risk buildings, but they're you know, we've still got um like the Defective Premises Act, for example, or you know, where where we're building lower rise, or say I say just not 18 metres, where there will still be recourse, um, and you know, it it we could be asking questions of the owner, the entity, the owning entity of that building as to why they selected XYZ product person, design, etc.
• 39:51
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 39:53
  SPEAKER_01: And do you think with the act now that's making the project teams engage with risk earlier, or are still, you know, some teams still treating it as that late-stage compliance exercise?
• 40:05
  SPEAKER_00: I think with um with major projects, building control was always something that was at the fore, anyway.
• 40:12
  SPEAKER_00: And on I'd say on the big schemes that I worked on, whether it was commercial or residential, we would have building control expert sitting in the room, managing a tracker, but also interrogating the design.
• 40:23
  SPEAKER_00: So potentially sitting alongside me as the CDM principal designer at the time.
• 40:27
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and we were we were looking at stuff, and you know, there's there's some building regulations that conflict with health and safety regulations.
• 40:34
  SPEAKER_00: So I'd be sitting there sort of arguing the toss sometimes.
• 40:37
  SPEAKER_00: But I I believe that that was always at the fore.
• 40:39
  SPEAKER_01: I it's easier, it's more viable, commercially viable in those big schemes, right?
• 40:45
  SPEAKER_01: It's that middle ground.
• 40:47
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 40:48
  SPEAKER_01: Where is that a is that a gap which you really see?
• 40:52
  SPEAKER_00: Uh I'd say, yeah, where you where you're looking at a more potentially a more straightforward refurbishment, yeah.
• 41:01
  SPEAKER_00: So it's we're relying on um potentially the principal contractor's design team to to give us the solutions and to confirm that things meet building regs.
• 41:13
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I do believe that in any project of any level, as soon as the word value engineering comes out of someone's mouth, I know there's gonna be either a reduction in health and safety or or building safety.
• 41:30
  SPEAKER_00: And yeah, we see it all.
• 41:33
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's just yeah, all the controls, yeah.
• 41:35
  SPEAKER_01: Um I hate the term it's not value engineering, is it?
• 41:39
  SPEAKER_01: Let's be honest.
• 41:40
  SPEAKER_01: It's cost cutting, it's cost-cutting and scope reduction.
• 41:42
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 41:43
  SPEAKER_01: Like the reality is when when you look at someone's value engineering sheets, it's very rarely are we're swapping this product for this product that matches up specification-wise, yeah, and it's gonna save us some money.
• 41:55
  SPEAKER_01: It's it's removing scope of work or going from something which is a high quality compliance to lower.
• 42:03
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 42:03
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I've so I've seen it hundreds of times on projects that I've worked on.
• 42:08
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but yeah, I think as soon as you get into a DB contract and then their design team takes over, you might be lucky enough and still have a client monitoring role, um, you know, designer sitting there.
• 42:19
  SPEAKER_00: But that's not always the case, especially if we look at those smaller schemes.
• 42:23
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but as soon as someone decides they want to start cutting some costs, that's where the issues arise.
• 42:30
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 42:32
  SPEAKER_01: And how do we best stop the Building Safety Act then becoming just another paperwork process and make it something that generally improves outcome?
• 42:45
  SPEAKER_00: I'd argue that it does.
• 42:46
  SPEAKER_00: And I I want to go into this with a hugely positive mindset.
• 42:52
  SPEAKER_00: I don't believe the Building Safety Act has put be has been put there to create more barriers.
• 42:59
  unknown: No.
• 43:00
  SPEAKER_00: I don't believe that's why that's not the intention.
• 43:03
  SPEAKER_00: And I know there are sticking points, but by following it, we're all much more aware of the risk.
• 43:12
  SPEAKER_00: We're all much more aware of what what that positive outcome is for our asset, whether it's an existing building or a new building.
• 43:19
  SPEAKER_00: I think if and when the construction products regulator come in as well, that will also improve things because we're people you know that everyone's going to be held to a higher standard with regards to what they're creating, what they are producing, and then for designers, what they're specifying.
• 43:36
  SPEAKER_00: Um we the the Building Safety Act has now made us more so much more aware.
• 43:43
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm I can't I'd love to know the statistics on how many fire risk appraisals of external wars were carried out 15 years ago compared to now.
• 43:52
  SPEAKER_00: I'm sure there's a hell of a lot more now.
• 43:55
  SPEAKER_00: Um and we're identifying the risks and we're doing our best to.
• 44:00
  SPEAKER_00: Remediate.
• 44:01
  SPEAKER_00: So I so I see the Building Safety Act as a positive influence towards making buildings safer.
• 44:09
  SPEAKER_00: And I I can also sit here and argue that at the moment there are so many delays that it is stopping that from happening.
• 44:17
  SPEAKER_00: Um and simple things like again, we we always go back to fire doors, and I know that's probably so boring for everyone, but fire fire door self-closers, this is a massive issue.
• 44:34
  SPEAKER_00: So a self-closer becomes default, and I'll you know that will stop, if that doesn't close, that will stop smoke from spreading and could potentially stop people from getting out of the building.
• 44:46
  SPEAKER_00: So I was recently at a conference where Peter Apps spoke.
• 44:49
  SPEAKER_00: So Peter Apps um works for Inside Housing and he is he was the author of Show Me the Bodies and was behind the Netflix documentary on Grandfell.
• 45:01
  SPEAKER_00: He said that there were um more deaths relating to fires with defective self-closers than from fires of external plaiding.
• 45:12
  SPEAKER_00: And I was I was really surprised by that.
• 45:14
  SPEAKER_00: I hadn't it hadn't really dawned on me how important uh a self-closer is.
• 45:21
  SPEAKER_00: And then when you when you start to sort of delve into it, it makes so much sense.
• 45:25
  SPEAKER_00: Um but anyway, finding those little things, getting them fixed, we can't just go and and replace ten defective fire doors.
• 45:35
  SPEAKER_00: I say replace, there's lots of arguments about repairs and stuff, but you can't replace 10 defective fire doors without going through the gateway process and without waiting nine to twelve months for the approval.
• 45:47
  SPEAKER_01: So I wasn't aware of that.
• 45:49
  SPEAKER_00: That whole time there are people at risk.
• 45:54
  SPEAKER_00: Um and so that's that's This is in HRBs.
• 45:57
  SPEAKER_00: In HRBs, yeah.
• 45:59
  SPEAKER_01: So you've got a really cheap, cost-effective solution to a problem which is causing big risks to occupants, but you can't do the works until the gateway process is complete.
• 46:12
  SPEAKER_00: Correct, yeah.
• 46:14
  SPEAKER_00: Yep.
• 46:16
  SPEAKER_00: That's major.
• 46:19
  SPEAKER_01: It's someone sitting looking at it from the outside in, and I don't think people really do see that from the outside of the industry.
• 46:30
  SPEAKER_01: That will come across as absolutely I'm gonna say absolutely batshit crazy, right?
• 46:36
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 46:37
  SPEAKER_01: Um it makes no sense.
• 46:40
  SPEAKER_01: So we and will make people quite angry, I think.
• 46:42
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, definitely.
• 46:43
  SPEAKER_00: And I say this, it's something that is on my team's radar all the time because we we're we're finding these issues and we've got the solution.
• 46:52
  SPEAKER_00: Our clients got the money, they want to get it done, and there's just this blocker.
• 46:58
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so there's obviously lots of people are aware of CLAD-in, you know, outside of the industry.
• 47:04
  SPEAKER_00: It's it's it's it's you know, it's prevalent in the in the in the media, and there are lots of different funds and you know, there's it's everything that seems to be happening with with CLAD-in.
• 47:16
  SPEAKER_00: But if the real risk is, or the or not the real risk, if the more predominant risk is preventing fire spread within the buildings, once it's got in, you know, if it could stay in a compartment, great.
• 47:30
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 47:32
  SPEAKER_00: But if if those fire doors are defective, a fire doors wedged open, the the self-closer's broke, so someone's you know, it just does, it just doesn't close, that that could massively impact, you know, pe hundreds of people, depending on the size of the block, hundreds of people from getting through out of their area through the staircore and out of the building.
• 47:54
  SPEAKER_00: If we're replacing a fire door and you know, all the you know, the equipment that comes with it, surround, etc., and we know we've got a fully compliant product going in, it meets the fire strategy.
• 48:07
  SPEAKER_00: Do we really need to wait for approval?
• 48:10
  unknown: No.
• 48:11
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm I'm telling my clients the letter of the law is yes, you do.
• 48:16
  SPEAKER_00: We've had evidence where some we are aware of some buildings where they've carried out fire door repairs and replacements and then going through the regularisation application.
• 48:29
  SPEAKER_00: Um, somewhere they've just not worried about telling the regulator at all.
• 48:34
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and others like one come up recently where they've got 60 doors which have been delivered to site, but they can't they can't get on with the works.
• 48:43
  SPEAKER_00: So those safe doors are sitting there, ready to go on, but it but it can't.
• 48:48
  SPEAKER_00: Um and there are some instances where we've heard of people putting in um emergency repairs applications.
• 48:57
  SPEAKER_00: So this is something else, a provision under the the Building Safety Act.
• 49:00
  SPEAKER_00: If if um the works meet the definition of an emergency repair, you can carry on.
• 49:07
  SPEAKER_00: Where we, and um we're other people that have done this, you advise the regulator of an emergency repair, because it's you know, 10 fire doors being replaced, they'll they could either completely ignore it or they could come back straight away and say, do not proceed, this requires a gateway application.
• 49:24
  SPEAKER_00: So then you're stuck.
• 49:26
  SPEAKER_01: And then just just for my own sanity on this, and I'm I'm really hoping it's not going to fall into this trap.
• 49:34
  SPEAKER_01: Is there financial implication in terms of the government or the regulator getting more money paid to them for going through a gateway process than this?
• 49:48
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so the regulators' initial uh figure they they charged was£144 an hour to review your information.
• 49:58
  SPEAKER_00: And I remember when this all did come about, people were arguing that it was just a money-making exercise.
• 50:04
  SPEAKER_00: But all this information has to get reviewed by multidisciplinary teams.
• 50:08
  SPEAKER_00: So they're going out to the fire brigade, the local sewage provider.
• 50:12
  SPEAKER_00: Um it's then they're not gonna have a massive Christmas party off the back of this, right?
• 50:17
  SPEAKER_00: They're not they're not making millions and millions of pounds.
• 50:20
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but it is costing people a lot more.
• 50:24
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, but that's because there is so much more um focus on what information they're providing.
• 50:31
  SPEAKER_00: So there is there is costs.
• 50:35
  SPEAKER_00: So I would argue that going through the regulator, you are paying a lot more than you would if you went through standard building control.
• 50:41
  SPEAKER_00: And you're you're not getting you don't get given a set fee, you get drip-fed invoices.
• 50:48
  SPEAKER_00: So on a recent cladding project down in Exeter, our client was receiving invoices and we hadn't even got started on site yet.
• 50:56
  SPEAKER_00: And they had over 18,000 pounds worth of invoices for a building control application through the regulator.
• 51:03
  SPEAKER_00: If we were to compare that with going to a standard building control, we might be looking at, I don't know, four to four to seven thousand pounds.
• 51:10
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but we are also then, once those work's done, we're gonna have to pay, or our client is going to have to pay, for the building safety regulator to also review their gateway three information, which is the building control completion certificate um application.
• 51:26
  SPEAKER_00: We could they could be looking at the same amount of money.
• 51:28
  SPEAKER_00: They could be looking at more, who knows?
• 51:29
  SPEAKER_00: Because no one, there's there's not a benchmark.
• 51:32
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 51:33
  SPEAKER_01: And I think this for anyone who's not in this part of the world, and obviously probably you're in this you're in this world, so you probably are angry about it as well.
• 51:44
  SPEAKER_01: But you know, the Building Safety Act is fundamentally a good thing, and what it's bringing on is good things.
• 51:52
  SPEAKER_01: But this this should make people quite fucking furious that simple remediation, simple solutions to risk are being held back due to the government's lack of ability to turn around stuff in in a timely manner and then also putting financial pressures onto asset owners who are already probably fighting fighting a good fight, and as that where's where's that gonna get what where's that cost gonna go to eventually?
• 52:32
  SPEAKER_01: It's gonna go to the end tenant in the end, right?
• 52:34
  SPEAKER_00: So it's there's two two strands I'd like to pick up from that.
• 52:37
  SPEAKER_00: So first one being the the anger and frustration from clients all the way down to to the tenants on why things are taking so long.
• 52:51
  SPEAKER_00: They know their building's unsafe, they want it sorted.
• 52:55
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I don't know if you've heard of the the the phrase mortgage prisons.
• 53:01
  SPEAKER_00: So we have heard of people that are stuck in these apartments, they can't move out, they can't sell, and there's even been instances of people taking their lives.
• 53:12
  SPEAKER_00: You know, it's been reported that there's been instances of people taking their lives.
• 53:16
  SPEAKER_00: So horrendous situation to be in.
• 53:19
  SPEAKER_00: And then when we sort of delve into the costs and who is paying for this, if if you um have a standard leasehold arrangement, these costs are borne by the leaseholders.
• 53:34
  SPEAKER_00: So I was doing some work for a local authority, maybe about 18 months, two years ago now, and we were talking about this.
• 53:42
  SPEAKER_00: So they've got a number of HRBs in in their um in their council, and they were carrying out major internal and external remediation works, and they're explaining to me that some of the leaseholders of those flats who bought them when they were able to, thought they were doing a good thing, they're now being um given a bill for£100,000.
• 54:06
  SPEAKER_00: But it's okay because that council, what they're gonna do is they're gonna just keep that bill and you don't have to pay till you sell it.
• 54:13
  SPEAKER_00: That's that's again, you're just keeping people, you're sort of kind of trapping people there because they could have negative equity on on that, and that is it, they're stuck.
• 54:23
  SPEAKER_00: They can't find 100.
• 54:25
  SPEAKER_00: I would argue that most people who live in uh, you know, a a suburban or um, you know, greater London authority kind of um council-owned block, they probably probably don't have£100,000 lying around.
• 54:39
  SPEAKER_03: No.
• 54:41
  SPEAKER_00: So what what do they do?
• 54:42
  SPEAKER_00: They're stuck.
• 54:43
  SPEAKER_00: Or bankrupt.
• 54:45
  unknown: Yeah.
• 54:47
  SPEAKER_01: No fault of theirs.
• 54:48
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 54:49
  SPEAKER_00: When they bought that apartment, they they would have bought it in good faith that it was being adequately maintained.
• 54:56
  SPEAKER_00: And they would have been paying their, you know, their their annual service charge as well, you know, or their management fee, whatever, whatever they want to refer to it as.
• 55:03
  SPEAKER_00: But you would have been paying, you know, a couple of hundred, cut pretended potentially a couple of thousand pounds a year, depending on on the block.
• 55:11
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 55:11
  SPEAKER_00: But now you're footed with that bill.
• 55:13
  SPEAKER_00: And there's there's also there's also um you know grant funding in place for external remediation, but there isn't for internal remediation.
• 55:22
  SPEAKER_00: So again, there's that discrepancy between where where the money's coming from and and who's who's paying for it.
• 55:28
  SPEAKER_00: But again, we we could we could get into a big rabbit hole over the issues that I'm finding here with who's paying for what?
• 55:34
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, exactly.
• 55:35
  SPEAKER_01: Um moving on, um with with your role, and I mean this in the nicest way possible, but how do you navigate the fact that quite often I imagine quite often you're the person saying no?
• 55:53
  SPEAKER_01: Or delivering bad news delivering the bad news side of things.
• 55:58
  SPEAKER_00: Uh yeah, that's that's probably quite a diff one of the most difficult parts of of the role.
• 56:05
  SPEAKER_00: Um and I'm sure for my team as well, the the the sort of technical specialists that are going in and explain to a client that this is actually like this this survey is gonna cost£70,000.
• 56:16
  SPEAKER_00: Um I suppose we we've got the the backup of the regulations um behind us to explain why.
• 56:26
  SPEAKER_00: But it is it's it does put us in a difficult position, and especially where you know, we we might have clients that we've worked with for you know decades and they they come to us and all of a sudden every time we see them, there's an issue with this building, that building, and that building.
• 56:40
  SPEAKER_00: And when do you want us to start looking at the next three?
• 56:43
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and I'm sure, I'm sure they they find sometimes working with consultants that it's just a constant money pit.
• 56:51
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but I suppose what we're trying to do is advise them of exactly what they need to do and why they need to do it.
• 57:00
  SPEAKER_00: So there's a justification.
• 57:01
  SPEAKER_00: Um yeah, and lots of our clients then have to go back up to the board and back to the trustees to explain why, and again, that's sometimes why I get involved with speaking to trustees.
• 57:11
  SPEAKER_00: Um just to make it clear that these are legal responsibilities, it's not best practice.
• 57:20
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 57:20
  SPEAKER_00: You have to do these things, and this is why.
• 57:22
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and the rules.
• 57:24
  SPEAKER_01: Rules have changed in the time in which you've owned a building.
• 57:27
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 57:28
  SPEAKER_01: And that must be quite a hard, hard thing for some of these people who are quite like five steps removed to really grasp and understand.
• 57:36
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, like I said, so you you buy a building, you've done your due diligence on it.
• 57:43
  SPEAKER_00: You might have a long leaseholder who has got a you know, repair and maintenance lease.
• 57:50
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and then you find out five years down the line that they haven't done any of that, or they've not done it properly, or they've they've got incompetent people to do the design and then the the construction, and all of a sudden your building is worse off than what it was when you bought it.
• 58:04
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so there there are instances of this happening at the moment.
• 58:08
  SPEAKER_00: So we're helping our clients to navigate that again, working so closely with legal teams because you've got we've got to try and find the the right ways of kind of explaining the argument and finding recourse for for the funding or the costings of these things.
• 58:28
  SPEAKER_01: And has there been much recourse in terms of that side of things?
• 58:35
  SPEAKER_00: I I I personally haven't heard a huge amount of Yeah, so there's there's been a few um cases over the last couple of months.
• 58:43
  SPEAKER_00: So there have uh we're finding that the um the courts are looking for ways of getting the the contractors um to to pay for their their errors, but we're also seeing companies going into administration, which allows them to you know kind of avoid that.
• 59:06
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah um so I'd say it's a bit hit and miss.
• 59:11
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but there's there's a an issue with one of the buildings I'm looking at at the moment where the legal team are have been supporting, but the the contractor is now no, you know, null and void.
• 59:22
  SPEAKER_00: So it then falls onto our client to cover the cost.
• 59:26
  SPEAKER_00: And also where this um this building doesn't have leaseholders, there's there is no one else.
• 59:33
  SPEAKER_00: It's not service charge recovery, it's not gonna go down to the tenants, it is for the client to to pay for, unfortunately.
• 59:40
  SPEAKER_00: So the building owner is gonna have to stump up the cost for this.
• 59:43
  SPEAKER_00: Now there's I suppose there's a difference here between when you've got you know a a big um you know institutional fund compared to we're starting to see some more private equity come into the market, and you know that they are a bit more nervous about buying um high-risk buildings because of this.
• 1:00:01
  SPEAKER_00: They are thinking they understand the risk involved to them.
• 1:00:04
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and I think you know, um I I had uh Samantha Clare m MacLary from BCO on, and she made a you know a really valid point that now from looking in and at the industry now being in the industry, actually, you know, the margins aren't massive.
• 1:00:23
  SPEAKER_01: It's not these big landlords making huge amounts of money from real estate, the margins are tight.
• 1:00:29
  SPEAKER_01: So, you know, these sort of things uh have have massive impacts, and essentially those impacts quite a lot of the time is going on to people's pensions or whatever.
• 1:00:38
  SPEAKER_00: So yeah, yeah.
• 1:00:39
  SPEAKER_00: I'm I'd like to um uh think that uh pensions are being protected because I'm hoping to get one one day.
• 1:00:49
  SPEAKER_01: Um coming to a close, I just wanted to touch on basically you're a female leader in a technical and compliance heavy industry um in the built environment.
• 1:01:02
  SPEAKER_01: Has that shaped the way in which you've had to build authority over influence?
• 1:01:07
  SPEAKER_00: Um these sorts of questions I I get asked them quite frequently, and I suppose I don't know any different.
• 1:01:17
  SPEAKER_00: Um and sometimes I I've found myself being maybe the only woman in the room, and I find I will speak up to get my voice heard, and sometimes I hear myself and I sound really harsh and aggressive, and I sometimes have to sort of check myself.
• 1:01:33
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but I don't know, I think we're in a different world now.
• 1:01:36
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and I'd like to think that people who have met me and have worked with me appreciate the the knowledge and skill that I've got, so I don't have to to fight my way to be to be heard anymore.
• 1:01:50
  SPEAKER_00: But again, we could speak for an hour on the experiences that I've had in the past and different people I've I've I've I've had to cut to deal with.
• 1:01:58
  SPEAKER_00: But um I'd I'd say do it being here and you know in this position at Workman and the clients that we're working with, I think there's a huge amount of respect for everyone of every level, yeah.
• 1:02:16
  SPEAKER_00: Um and I I d I don't see the fact that I'm a a woman as either held me back or or pushed me forward potentially.
• 1:02:27
  SPEAKER_01: And then what advice would you give to a woman coming into the into your your particular part of commercial real estate, I guess?
• 1:02:34
  SPEAKER_00: Um I if if there's something that you're interested in and something you want to do, then just go all in.
• 1:02:41
  SPEAKER_00: Um I don't think anyone really likes people who are a bit indecisive and and can't give something their full attention.
• 1:02:50
  SPEAKER_00: So what whatever it is that you want to do, go go in, jump in with two feet.
• 1:02:55
  SPEAKER_00: And if you change your mind and you decide you don't like it and you want to do something else, you always can.
• 1:03:00
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but I I really would like to see um more people come into the industry, again, male or female, um, and especially those those younger ages, you know, we we we've we take on a lot of printers and a lot of grads, and I really would love to see more more people come through who want to learn and develop, and there's so much experience um and mentorship to be to be given.
• 1:03:26
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and we've got to try and close this skills gap somehow.
• 1:03:30
  SPEAKER_00: So, yeah, I'd come try it, see what see what you like about the role.
• 1:03:34
  SPEAKER_00: But luckily for me, I don't have to get my boots dirty too much anymore.
• 1:03:38
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 1:03:38
  SPEAKER_01: And then what does the next five to ten years look like for the building safety in the UK?
• 1:03:45
  SPEAKER_00: Um I I'd like to see over the over the next five years our existing buildings um get all the remediation done that they need.
• 1:03:55
  SPEAKER_00: And I know that's not, you know, it's that's unlikely to be the case, but I'd like to see buildings physically safer, not just with action plans.
• 1:04:03
  SPEAKER_00: I'd like to see um more focus on residential buildings of all heights, and especially I I do believe that we're going to see it um a move away from the 18-metre buildings and come down to the 11 metres, which I think would be positive for the buildings, an absolute nightmare for the regulator and for clients.
• 1:04:25
  SPEAKER_00: It will be an you know incredibly cost-efficient, uh cost-effective cost um.
• 1:04:32
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 1:04:33
  SPEAKER_01: Do you do you think what was it?
• 1:04:35
  SPEAKER_01: Is it a three or five-year cycle you have to reapply?
• 1:04:38
  SPEAKER_00: It's a five-year cycle on the building um assessment certificates.
• 1:04:41
  SPEAKER_01: Do you think we'll be in a position where we've had our first what backs this year?
• 1:04:47
  SPEAKER_01: Um was it last year?
• 1:04:49
  SPEAKER_00: Um yeah, from January 2025, the first one was issued, we believe.
• 1:04:52
  SPEAKER_01: So do you think we'd have got through all of the backlog by the time that first one's five-year cycle comes up?
• 1:04:59
  SPEAKER_00: I don't believe that they would have got through all of the buildings.
• 1:05:04
  SPEAKER_00: And one of the issues is I don't think all the buildings, all the HRBs have been identified properly yet.
• 1:05:11
  SPEAKER_00: Um obviously loads of new builds happening.
• 1:05:14
  SPEAKER_00: I say loads, you know, hundreds of new builds happening, not thousands.
• 1:05:18
  SPEAKER_00: Um so there's that backlog's just gonna keep coming.
• 1:05:22
  SPEAKER_01: And they're gonna add to it with the 11 with the 11 meters.
• 1:05:25
  SPEAKER_00: If they were to come down to 11 metres, so we we it's estimated that around 14,500 HRBs in England.
• 1:05:33
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 1:05:34
  SPEAKER_00: If we were then to look at the buildings between 11 and 18 metres, that could potentially be, you know, sort of 150, 200,000.
• 1:05:42
  SPEAKER_00: We just don't know at this stage how many 11 to 18 metre buildings we've got.
• 1:05:47
  SPEAKER_00: Um you could look at, you know, your local high street, you might have um like parade of shops, two stories of of uh retail space, and then there could be a couple of flats on top, all of a sudden you could be at 11 metres.
• 1:06:02
  SPEAKER_00: So, again, almost accidental buildings, you know, they weren't necessarily designed to be residential, just resi-chucked on.
• 1:06:11
  SPEAKER_00: So, yeah, a world of pain will happen when when and if we do go to 11 metres.
• 1:06:19
  SPEAKER_00: But the government, in December, they announced that they're going to keep the review of the definition of a HRB open.
• 1:06:29
  SPEAKER_00: And well, I suppose they'll just see see what suits them when it when it when they get to it.
• 1:06:35
  SPEAKER_01: So they need to magic up some more regulators pretty fast then.
• 1:06:38
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, well they're saying they're fully staffed at around a hundred people, but obviously a lot of it gets outsourced.
• 1:06:44
  SPEAKER_00: So we know that they've got um frameworks with building control um companies, but not necessarily with people who are managing I'm not I'm not sure exactly who is managing the building safety case report reviews, etc., at the moment.
• 1:07:00
  SPEAKER_01: And if you could change one behaviour across the industry tomorrow, what would it be?
• 1:07:04
  SPEAKER_00: I would I'd like uh people to accept that things cost money and that sometimes you've got to pay for something.
• 1:07:18
  SPEAKER_01: And what does build to perform mean to you in the context of building safety?
• 1:07:23
  SPEAKER_00: I f so for me, you wouldn't give me this as a uh as a heads up, did you?
• 1:07:30
  SPEAKER_00: Um realistically, everything we design should be built to work and to do to do what it does.
• 1:07:36
  SPEAKER_00: We've got to start adopting modern technology.
• 1:07:40
  SPEAKER_00: Um that is that the only way we're going to be able to effectively manage our buildings properly.
• 1:07:46
  SPEAKER_00: So for me, I think Building Safety Act ties in really, really uh closely with that phrase, built to perform.
• 1:07:54
  SPEAKER_00: Because otherwise, what is the point in building it?
• 1:07:57
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, lovely.
• 1:07:58
  SPEAKER_01: Well, thank you so much for coming on the podcast today.
• 1:08:01
  SPEAKER_01: Um, really enjoyable episode.
• 1:08:03
  SPEAKER_01: Um, people are going to learn a lot from that.
• 1:08:05
  SPEAKER_01: So there's there's a lot of value there.
• 1:08:08
  SPEAKER_01: So thank you so much for sharing all your knowledge with us.
• 1:08:10
  SPEAKER_01: I really appreciate it.
• 1:08:11
  SPEAKER_00: Brilliant.
• 1:08:11
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you, James.
• 1:08:12
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you.