Building Safety Updates – Wales Bill

The 7th July saw the introduction of the Building Safety (Wales) Bill, a landmark step in delivering a safer built environment for residents across Wales.

The Bill, which follows similar legislation introduced in the Building Safety Act 2022 (BSA 2022), introduces a new building safety regime for multi-occupied residential buildings, placing clear legal duties on accountable persons to assess and manage fire and structural risks throughout a building’s lifecycle.

The Senedd states that the Building Safety (Wales) Bill forms part of a wider programme of reforms aimed at improving safety in these buildings, and is part of the Welsh Government’s broader response to the Grenfell Tower tragedy which seeks to prevent such a tragedy from ever happening again, and includes:

• A programme of work aimed at addressing fire safety issues in multi-occupied residential buildings of 11m and above;

• Significant reforms to the building control system;

• Introducing new regulations for high-risk buildings;

• Clearer responsibilities for duty holders;

• Mandatory registration and regulation of building control professionals.

The Bill will require building safety risks to be assessed and managed while buildings are in occupation, for the benefit of residents and others, with a robust enforcement regime to back that up. Fire safety duties will also apply to certain Houses in Multiple Occupation.

The legislation will also create clear lines of accountability for duty holders. These duty holders will have legal responsibility for assessing and managing building safety, ending confusion over who is responsible for the safety of residents and others.

Additionally, the Bill will see residents in all regulated buildings provided with greater reassurances about the safety of their homes and clear routes for redress to raise building safety complaints, while also placing responsibilities on residents to play their part in keeping their building safe.

Read the full official statement via the link below:

Written Statement: Building Safety in Wales (4 March 2024) | GOV.WALES

Remediation Acceleration Plan Update 

The Remediation Acceleration Plan (RAP), published in December 2024, set out the government’s plans to accelerate the remediation of residential buildings with unsafe cladding in England and improve resident experience. As part of that plan, the government committed to publishing an update to report on progress and outline additional measures to support the delivery of its key objectives:

An update published in mid-July outlined the progress already made against these objectives and sets out a range of additional measures to fix buildings faster, identify those 11m+ buildings still at risk and ensure that residents are supported in the process. These measures will help to overcome the barriers to remediation so that residents feel safe and are safe in their homes.

The additional measures include:

· Giving social landlords equal access to government remediation funding as private landlords, supported by a new joint plan between government, social landlords and regulators to speed up remediation, cutting years off the time to make social tenants safe and improving resident experience before, during and after remedial works.

· Bringing forward a Remediation Bill to create a hard ‘endpoint’ for remediation. A Legal Duty to Remediate will compel landlords to remediate their buildings within fixed timescales or face criminal prosecution. Avoidance is not an option. Where landlords fail, new powers - including a Remediation Backstop - will ensure the work gets done. The Bill will be brought forward as soon as parliamentary time allows.

· Tightening fire assessment standards to minimise delays to remediation start dates and provide certainty on the scope of works.

· Supporting the delivery of Local Remediation Acceleration Plans (LRAPs) to enhance collaborative working and expertise at regional levels, further to the over £5 million in funding already provided to metro mayors.

· Establishing a National Remediation System (NRS) to serve as the single source of data for all relevant buildings over 11 metres to enhance information sharing across partner organisations.

The update also goes on to outline the government’s intentions to “make industry pay” which include:

Building Safety Levy

The Building Safety Levy will come into effect from the 1st October 2026, and is anticipated to raise around £3.4 billion over 10 years. On the 10th July, draft levy regulations were laid in Parliament for approval and published guidance and other supporting material. Local Authorities, registered building control approvers, the Building Safety Regulator, and developers are advised to begin preparations to implement the levy ahead of October 2026, when it comes into force. The levy rates, per local authority area, were as previously published on 24 March. The government will be providing support to all stakeholders from now until the levy comes into effect through a programme of engagement directly with stakeholders or facilitated by their representative bodies.

Developer Debt Collection Programme

The RAP announced a Developer Debt Collection programme where over 50 of the largest building developers in the country were invited to sign a legally binding contract to hold them responsible for repaying the taxpayer for government funds used to remediate life-critical fire safety defects in the buildings they developed. This programme will recover circa £700 million, with the initial focus on billing for completed buildings. The programme was operationalised in 2024/25 and will “ramp up across 2025/26, with projected income of circa £120 million expected for 2025/26”.

For further information visit the official update here: 

Remediation Acceleration Plan update, July 2025 - GOV.UK

Fire Safety (England) Regulations 2022: New Fire Door Guidance

At the end of August, the government published new guidance for Fire Doors, which is intended to assist those with duties under the Fire Safety (England) Regulations to comply with regulation 10, which makes requirements about fire doors in all buildings that contain two or more domestic premises and that contain common parts, through which residents would need to evacuate in a fire. The official release also highlights that The Responsible Person for the communal parts is responsible for undertaking the checks mandated by the Fire Safety (England) Regulations, including provision of information about flat entrance doors that must be given to all residents.

Further detail can be found on the official page here: 

Fire Safety (England) Regulations 2022: fire door guidance (accessible) - GOV.UK

This article was written by the Building Safety Team at JB Leitch