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The draft Building Safety Bill sets out an overhaul of the system

Oct 15, 2020, 10:14 AM

Property Week published an article highlighting some of the key implications of the draft Building Safety Bill, which Lord Greenhalgh, the minister for fire and building safety, declared as: “These are the biggest changes to building safety legislation for nearly 40 years.”

The two key themes coming out of the article were:

  • The cost of the desired changes
  • A requirement for a Golden Thread of building safety information

The cost to change

The draft bill proposes four main changes to the system:

  • establishing a new building safety regulator;
  • assigning an accountable person for all buildings more than 18m tall;
  • introducing a new regime for design and construction; and
  • creating an ombudsman for new homes.

The new roles and increased responsibility will bring additional costs. The government's own impact assessment calculates the initial transition cost to be £820m and annual recurring costs of £420m (best estimates).

Golden Thread

A digital golden thread of building safety information that is created, stored electronically and updated throughout every stage of a building’s lifecycle, from planning approval to construction and occupancy. is a central part of the draft bill. 

“Technology holds the incredible potential to enable the ‘golden thread’ across the entire building lifecycle and the ecosystem it operates within,” says Rosalind Benjamin, chief executive of Ark Workplace Risk.

A solution such as QUOODA® is an example of the technology that can solve this problem, capturing information and storing it in the cloud, and talking to other information providers as part of a technology ecosystem.

For more information

For a free demonstration of the capabilities of QUOODA®, visit our website or email enquiries@quooda.com