Agenda item

The report, presented by the Assistant Chief Fire Officer, responded to a question raised by the Committee Chairman at the Planning Committee meeting held 12 July 2021 on ‘whether mid to high-rise buildings were in the same position as high-rise buildings?’. It was noted that the fire safety guidance and legislation had evolved and changed significantly since the Grenfell tragedy and that it continued to do so at pace.

This report provided an overview of how the legislation and associated guidance had evolved and how this related to Lancashire Fire and Rescue Service’s (LFRS) increasing duties as the Enforcing Authority for the Fire Safety Order 2005, Fire Safety Bill 2021, and Building Safety Bill (Draft). It was likely that there were sub 18m residential premises with external wall systems that had flammability performance which would not be acceptable if they had floors over 18m. Government guidance, and thus regulatory capability to address such issues (by any regulator) had evolved significantly in recent months away from a default inference to remove and remediate the cladding (the inferred position immediately post Grenfell) towards a much greater emphasis on proportionality, accepting a limited degree of flammability, and adopting risk assessed approaches.

It was vital that the Service had clear and unambiguous national guidance to follow so that when enforcement powers relating to external wall systems were conferred upon Fire and Rescue Service’s [in October 2021] by virtue of the Fire Safety Bill, the Service (and Fire Authority) were first and foremost able to ‘make Lancashire Safer’, but also in doing so were able to discharge legal responsibilities in a manner that matched national expectation, did not cause unjustifiable duress to leaseholders, and did not lead to enforcement action being successfully appealed in a manner that might impact significantly on the physical and financial resources of the Authority.

It was noted that the report did not detail the wider regulatory and resource issues concerning the new Building Safety Bill as that legislation related specifically [at that time] to Higher Risk Residential Buildings over 18m which would be jointly enforced by the Service working as part of the new Building Safety Regulator (with HSE / Building Control). This was being developed and planned to receive Royal assent in April 2022 and be enabled in 2023.

Building Risk Review

Lancashire had 69 higher risk residential premises which had all been fully audited under the Building Risk Review process.  In addition to reporting back to the National Fire Chiefs Council, Home Office and Ministry of Housing Communities and Local Government on the make up of the external wall systems, the process had allowed inspectors to identify other aspects of fire safety non-compliance.

To date 6 premises in this height range have been identified as having non-compliant external wall systems; all have interim measures in place. A further 3 premises also implemented interim measures; not due to inadequacy of their external wall systems, but instead due to other serious fire safety non-compliance issues such as internal compartmentation breaches or smoke management system defects.

The Building Safety Bill would, in future, tightly define Higher Risk Residential Buildings (HRRBs) as all buildings (new and existing) that were at least 18 metres in height or had at least 7 storeys, and hade at least two residential units. The initial Building Risk Review (BRR) data set provided by the NFCC contained premises of 6 floors and above.

In Lancashire all residential premises 6 floors and above had been audited by LFRS Protection staff. This approach had been taken in order to quality assure the data and to ensure that none of the buildings that fell into the 18m or above category were overlooked. It also ensured that risk information was gathered on buildings that fell into LFRS’s operational definition of ‘high-rise’ (6 floors and above) as this allowed risk information to be captured and placed on mobile data terminals. As part of the process protection teams were also asked to identify any additional buildings of 6 floors and above which might have been omitted from the original data.

In line with future Building Safety Bill requirements (18 metres in height or at least 7 storeys) LFRS had identified 38 premises ‘in-scope’ for the future regulations. All 38 premises had been fully audited of which the full make up of the external wall system was known for 19 premises with reports awaited for the remaining 19 (resulting in 6 enforcement notices and 30 notifications of deficiencies, 1 received informal advice and 1 was satisfactory).

It was noted that Lancashire had 31 residential premises of 6 floors which had also been inspected as part of the initial building risk review of which the full make up of the external wall system was known for 2 premises with reports awaited for the remaining 29 (resulting in 3 enforcement notices and 25 notifications of deficiencies, 1 received informal advice and 2 were satisfactory).

Sub 18m residential tall buildings had not been targeted for audit primarily due to the scale of the housing stock below 18m, with the Service not yet having enforcement powers beyond the common areas and the ongoing developments in the guidance. 

It was noted that the National Property Gazetteer indicated Lancashire currently had 2,226 purpose-built flats of 4 or 5 storeys and 7,715 of 3 storeys or less.  However, in the past 3 years, inspectors had audited 79 premises of 4/5 storeys (resulting in 6 enforcement notices and 49 notifications of deficiencies) and 195 premises of 3 storeys or less (resulting in 10 enforcement notices and 137 notifications of deficiencies).

RESOLVED: - That the Committee noted the report.