Seven years after the Grenfell Tower fire, we are still reading periodic news articles concerning its after effects: to people, communities, buildings and legislation. Extraordinarily, or perhaps not in our current national condition, it has taken this length of time to draw up and enact the Building Safety Act 2022 (BSA), to legislate to ensure that the construction industry designs, specifies and builds safe buildings for people to live and work in.

All of which could and should have taken place under existing legislation. How it came to be that the UK had to legislate to build, manage and maintain our buildings to ensure occupants’ safety will be another chapter in this sorry saga. The Building etc. (Amendment) (England) Regulations 2023, which were implemented under the BSA, exclusively apply to England. Meanwhile, Northern Ireland, Scotland, and Wales either have their own regulations in place or are in the process of developing them.

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