EWS HSE appoints Peter Baker as chief inspector of buildings Head of Building Safety Regulator has more than 30 years of experience at HSE The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) has announced the appointment of a chief inspector of buildings to establish and lead the new Building Safety Regulator. Peter Baker, HSEs current director of building safety and construction, will head up the Building Safety Regulator to deliver the new regime for high-risk buildings, oversee work to increase the competence of professionals working on buildings, and ensure effective oversight of the building safety environment. He will also be the first head of the building control profession, and lead the work to give independent, expert advice on building safety to industry, government, landlords and residents. The government asked HSE to establish a new Building Safety Regulator in the wake of the Grenfell Tower disaster, and following recommendations in Dame Judith Hackitts Building a Safer Future report. Baker said: I am honoured for the opportunity to play a lead role Peter Baker in bringing about the biggest change in building safety for a generation. Baker has more than 30 years experience with HSE, as an inspector and in senior operational posts, including chief inspector of construction. Since 2017, he has led HSEs involvement in the governments building safety programme. CIBSE said: This is a key appointment in the drive to transform the construction sector and to prevent anything like the Grenfell Tower tragedy from ever happening again. Manufacturer stopped selling Grenfell cladding in France The French company that supplied the flammable cladding used on Grenfell Tower had already stopped selling the same product in its home market before the fire tragedy that claimed 72 lives in 2017. Arconic ordered its French sales team to stop selling combustible ACM cladding Reynobond PE a year before the fire, but its UK sales manager denied receiving an instruction to stop selling it here. An internal email from the companys sales director, Alain Flacon, telling his French sales teams to stop recommending the product because of flammability issues was shown to the public inquiry into the Grenfell Tower disaster. Arconics managing director also told Product code of practice to force the inquiry that the cladding had never manufacturers to verify claims achieved the Class B fire rating claimed in its A new code of practice will force manufacturers to specification documents. Claude Schmidt provide evidence to support claims made about their said it was only after the fire that the company construction products. became aware of what was written in the fire The draft Code for Construction Product Information test for Grenfell. He accepted responsibility for has been developed under the leadership of the selling the cladding on a false basis, but said Construction Products Association, and is designed it was because of incomplete information. for products installed in buildings or civil engineering He said the fire-classification information works. It will require manufacturers to support was not false, but didnt go into detail, it didnt claims of compliance with industry standards or mention according to European standards the certification schemes. Manufactures will also have to different reactions to fire. provide verifiable information to support any claims Schmidt said Arconic would have had about the product. a basic understanding of the regulations The code was developed in response to the issues where it was selling its products, but would raised in Dame Judith Hackitts report Building a Safer not have detailed knowledge of the building Future, which confirmed radical change was needed regulations in each market. for construction products, particularly in the areas of testing, information and marketing. Read more in Hywel Davies column on page 14. CIBSE March 21 pp07 News.indd 7 New funds not likely to end cladding scandal The additional 3.5bn to end the cladding scandal announced by Housing Minister Robert Jenrick could lead to further injustices, and will not cover all at-risk buildings, according to many observers. The new money, which increases the funds available to replace flammable cladding on buildings more than 18 metres high (or above six storeys) to more than 5bn, was condemned as too little too late by the Grenfell United group, which represents bereaved families and survivors of the 2017 disaster. Building services bodies have also questioned the height threshold, pointing out that many low-rise buildings are equally as dangerous. Jenrick told parliament that the funding was the governments biggest direct investment in building safety and was designed to finish the job weve started of removing and replacing unsafe cladding. Starmer calls for cladding task force As many as 11 million people in the UK are living in buildings with unsafe cladding, according to the opposition Labour Party. Its leader, Sir Keir Starmer, has called for the establishment of a National Cladding Task Force to speed up work to improve the safety of high-rise residential buildings, and his plea has received backing from the British Safety Council. We support the call for a National Cladding Task Force and for legislation to protect leaseholders from costs, said the councils chief executive Mike Robinson. Four years after the Grenfell tragedy, the pace of removal of unsafe cladding has been disappointing, particularly given the risk to life that it presents. A legally enforceable 2022 deadline to make homes safe would provide some comfort to leaseholders. Alliance promises to speak with one voice An alliance of eight building engineering services bodies has been formed to improve the sectors political representation, lead its response to the post-Covid economic revival and support efforts to deliver a net-zero future. Actuate UK, brings CIBSE together with BESA, the research organisation BSRIA, ECA, the Federation of Environmental Trade Associations (FETA), the Lift and Escalator Industry Association (LEIA), the Electrical Contractors Association of Scotland, and the Scottish and NI Plumbing Employers Federation (SNIPEF). The group said it would support the delivery of a safer, more productive and sustainable UK built environment and would lead the sectors response to the building safety agenda. www.cibsejournal.com March 2021 7 19/02/2021 17:28