The Building Safety Act: Clarity, Accountability and Better Buildings

The industry clearly recognises the imperative behind the legislation and is responding, not just to comply with the regulations, but beyond them in the spirit of the law.  

Compliance can be time-consuming, and the government faces a challenge to make the process run more smoothly, as its new regulator deals with a backlog of applications. 

To help their clients navigate the BSA and achieve full compliance, Watts Group are supporting developers/investors/designers/contractors with professional advice from the earliest stages.

The BSA is reshaping responsibilities across the construction industry, shifting the emphasis onto accountability, record-keeping and long-term building safety. This is much more than a compliance hurdle to get across. 

Across the built environment sector, it has focused attention on safety, which should translate into better buildings and lives saved from fires or other hazards. For individual businesses, it is a chance to strengthen reputation, reduce risk and deliver better value – an opportunity to upgrade assets and enhance long-term value.

By staying ahead of regulatory changes in England and understanding parallel approaches in Scotland, Wales, and Ireland, Watts Group aims to ensure clients are fully prepared.

The Act applies to Higher Risk Buildings (HRB)in England, which are residential blocks over a certain height, hospitality, healthcare, hotels and student accommodation. For these buildings, the regulations have changed dramatically. 

Watts advise that if you are building, operating or altering an HRB, you need To appoint the right specialist consultants to give your project the best chance of passing through the regulator at first opportunity and allow sufficient time and funding contingencies for securing approval for your project.

Building Surveying 

Clients are naturally concerned about how the Act affects their buildings, which is not always straightforward. 

Rob Burke, Lead Director at Watts in the Building Surveying team, explains: “For owners and occupiers, there is uncertainty about whether they will be caught up in the Act” 

While it undoubtedly poses challenges in practice, he sees the Act as having a positive effect on the industry’s mindset.

Beyond the requirements to comply with the legislation, the Act has focused attention on the issues that led to its creation in the wake of the Grenfell fire. 

Rob says: “We see a raising of the levels of general concerns about diligence and rigour in building work. There is also greater awareness about fire safety.”

Surveyors are central to ensuring that existing buildings - and any future refurbishments - meet safety standards. The BSA’s “golden thread” requires accurate and accessible information, which strengthens the need for meticulous building records.

“The golden thread is very important in enabling the client to maintain their building and when planning alteration or refurbishment works,” says Rob. “That is true at the outset in being able to plan the scheme, then as it progresses and on completion when it is handed over.”

Greater scrutiny of remediation works (such as cladding, fire safety and structural integrity) requires surveyors to provide independent, defensible advice.

Watts’ Building Surveying team are carrying out numerous surveys of existing buildings, mainly student accommodation and hotels. Rather than giving general advice on the BSA, the team is identifying issues about specific buildings. The key questions are: Does the building fall under the BSA? And if it does, is it compliant? 

On more than one occasion, Watts’ team have seen developers returning to site to rectify issues with fire safety such as positioning and specification of sprinklers and fire doors – works that could have been done first time round with a greater understanding of the specifics in the regulations.

Despite the high profile of the Act in the industry, some landlords, developers, investors and tenants are still not fully aware of the requirements, says Rob, specifically where they would need to comply with the BSA if they are doing alterations. 

Adding a new room or even a new door to a building can affect fire safeguards. A request by a tenant to undertake work can trigger the provisions of the BSA.

One example where the team is helping clients deal with the Act is a project for a landlord that has acquired a hotel. 

In the near term, more projects will have to embrace the regulations, as Rob explains: “When the Act became law, there was a period of grace before the full force came into effect. We are now going to see fewer schemes falling outside that timescale and not eligible for the exceptions.”

Project Management 

For building projects that fall under the Act, there is heightened accountability during design and construction. This places more responsibility on the duty holders, namely the client, principal designer and principal contractor. Project Managers must ensure there is clear governance, record-keeping and compliance with gateways aligned with safety.

Timelines and budgets are significantly impacted by compliance checkpoints, particularly when securing approvals at Gateway 2 (pre-construction) and Gateway 3 (completion).

Watts’ Project Management team is helping clients navigate these gateways smoothly, building realistic approval times into programmes from the outset to minimise delays later on; in the context of extended review and approval times with submissions made to the regulator (in many cases more than eight months for complex projects).

The team’s approach reframes compliance as a driver of confidence because projects that secure gateway approvals first time can start construction sooner and achieve completion/occupation sooner. By coordinating efforts across disciplines, the PM team supports clients to deliver safe and compliant developments that can operate or be presented to market sooner.

Ed Resek, a Director in the Project Management team at Watts, says the BSA is undoubtedly a good thing for overall building safety in England and Wales. To deal with the challenges of securing compliance, the team advises considering additional up-front surveys, due diligence, and consultation to inform robust project programmes and confident budgets.

It is crucial to understand the impact on live and future projects. His team is advising clients how to interact with the regulator and secure swift approval, which directly reduces impact on programmes. It’s important to realise that early adjustment and adaptation can help ensure successful project delivery.

One consequence of the regulations is that fire safety engineers and building control consultants are in short supply. For every project concerning external works to an existing HRB, a Fire Risk Assessment of the External Walls Report (FRAEW) will be required, so early procurement/engagement of a reputable fire engineer, who is competent at producing FRAEW’s against the PAS9980 methodology, is absolutely critical. In some cases, clients are waiting 6-8 months for such reports.

Cost Management 

For Watts’ Cost Management team, the biggest impact of the Act on projects is funding. 

When the Building Safety Regulator created by the Act took on responsibility for building control from local authority departments, it immediately faced a deluge of applications.

As of September 2025, the bottleneck in the system means the average time for Gateway 2 approval is 43 weeks, which is impacting project viability. In one instance of fire safety remediation work, the budget has doubled because of delays in getting approval. 

Things could be set to improve, however. In June 2025, it was announced that responsibility for the Building Safety Regulator is being transferred from the Health and Safety Executive to a new Executive Agency within the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government. The move is intended to take place gradually, with formal legal transfer expected in 2026. 

Watts experts think this may ease the backlog of applications as the new agency is likely to be focused on delivery, not just the health and safety imperative.

Watts National Director of Cost Management, Steve Harper, recommends getting early contractor involvement in the process to ensure that designs and work programmes are fully deliverable as planned. This ought to minimise the risk of approval being withheld and a lengthy iteration process before the project can proceed.

On new builds, Steve perceives the impact of the new regulations will be far less than on fire remediation, undoing what was bad practice or is otherwise non-compliant. He predicts more demand for clerks of works to make sure new builds are delivered as they should be as efficiently as possible.

Independent Monitoring

Watts’ Independent Monitoring team is employed by funders, investors and lenders to carry out technical due diligence on proposed developments and then monitor them through the lifecycle of the build to completion.

“We look at areas such as design, investigations and surveys, procurement, planning, costs, insurance and statutory requirements,” explains Josh Evans, Senior Development Consultant and Fund Surveyor, “and those statutory requirements now include the BSA of course.”

The team carries out some commercial, industrial and PBSA work but is mostly active on residential buildings, typically housing estates and apartment blocks. 

The importance of continued research to understand the intricacies of the regulations was emphasized recently by a development that initially wasn’t thought to be a high-risk building. Following their TDD process, the team discovered that it did in fact fall under the regulations due to its location on sloping ground and the presence of an under croft (basement). 

Owners and tenants of existing buildings in that category have no choice but to comply with the new regulations, of course. As a result, the team has been involved in cladding remediation works for their clients to ensure the work conforms.

For new developments, Josh observes: “Since the BSA, some developers are actively avoiding designing developments over 18 metres (or seven storeys) if they can.” Meanwhile, some contractors have been shying away from design and build projects. 

Lenders, too, are nervous. “There is a lot of hesitation around the Act,” says Josh. “Some are tentative towards high-risk buildings. If they are going into the market, they are being cautious. They want all the “t”s crossed and all the “i”s dotted. That makes obtaining funding more onerous for developers, so inevitably their costs rise.”

“It will take time before people get really comfortable with the changed scenario,” says Josh.

UK-Wide Context

England and Wales: The Building Safety Act is most developed here, with the full gateway process and Building Safety Regulator oversight. Wales has adopted parts of the BSA, particularly around extended liability and resident protections, but implementation timelines differ.

Scotland: Whilst the Building Safety Act does not directly apply in a Scotland, there are elements of the Act which may impact the Scottish construction sector, such as the regulation of construction products, liability for defective construction and cladding products, and extended prescription periods. Further, separate specific Scottish legislation has now come into force, such as The Housing (Cladding Remediation) (Scotland) Bill, which has been introduced to facilitate the delivery of the Cladding Remediation Programme, in Scotland.

Iain MacLaren, Lead Director for Watts in Scotland, is an active representative on the Scottish Building Standards Fire Hub and explains “We are not bound by the same regulations as England with the BSA. Regulations in Scotland were already more stringent and brought more properties into their scope, however this has not stopped the Scottish Government acting, with Single Building Assessments being brought in to address existing at risk buildings, and review of the Technical Standards being progressed, to ensure these are scrutinised for any further improvements, learning from recent catastrophic fires which have been reported around the globe”. 

Scotland is also now introducing Compliance Plans, which will be verified by the Building Control departments of Local Authorities, who will be assisted by additional expert verifiers, where High Risk Buildings (HRB’s) are involved, or where fire engineered solutions are deemed complex. This system will be structured in a way which supports larger geographies, to try avoiding any undue delay with applications. 

Iain MacLaren further commented that “whilst the Scottish regulations were considered significantly more robust than other global regions, the Scottish Government has recognised that best practice in fire safety is evolving, therefore following initial review, updates to ‘Section 2: Fire’ within the Technical Standards are expected early next year, with a more wholesale review already underway, to facilitate further changes in the future”.

Northern Ireland: In Northern Ireland, the Defective Premises Act was brought in last year. This doesn't address the majority of issues within the Building Safety Act, but it does align the timeframes for bringing a claim against a responsible party for a building with defects, explains Jack McGowan, Associate Director in Watts’ Belfast office.

The Northern Ireland Assembly has promised a suite of legislation including consultation on new policy and building regulations updates that will collectively address the contents of the Building Safety Act in England and Wales. 

Because Northern Ireland’s property and construction market is dominated by SMEs, any regulations that hold owners and professionals to account for potentially large claims are problematic, especially as insurers are hesitant to take them on.

There is some crossover with UK-wide initiatives such as the Homes Ombudsman scheme, the Central Register for Architects and the Construction Products Regulator.

Ireland: Ireland is following its own path, with the Building Control (Amendment) Regulations (BCAR) already placing significant responsibility on certifiers. An approved booklet deals entirely with fire risk measures. 

Although Ireland is a separate jurisdiction, it has signed up to the Belfast Group, a collaboration between the various institutions of architects across all the jurisdictions in the UK and Ireland. Representatives of each sit on a collaborative board to standardise fire safety design.
Final Word

The Building Safety Act is a driver for positive change in building safety, and an enormous challenge. Getting the response right has the potential to minimise time and financial losses. 

It could even be an opportunity for developers and contractors to differentiate themselves and gain advantage over competitors who have failed to respond effectively. 

Because of the extended timescales and complexity of navigating the Act, Watts multidisciplinary teams urge clients considering new projects to get expert help from the outset.

This article was written by Watts Group