CIH Cymru welcomes publication of the Building Safety (Wales) Bill 

CIH Cymru has welcomed today’s publication of the Building Safety (Wales) Bill, which sets out a new building safety regime in Wales focussing on the occupation and ongoing management of multi-occupied residential buildings. 

The bill proposes the creation of three categories of multi-occupied residential buildings, determined by a building’s height and the number of storeys it contains, with different levels of regulations depending on which category it falls into. 

Buildings within scope of the regime that are over 11 metres in height or have five storeys or more will be subject to both fire safety and structural safety duties and will be required to register. Buildings below 11 metres and with fewer than five storeys will be subject to only the fire safety requirements of the proposed legislation. 

There are also provisions within the bill that recognise the importance of the role of residents in fire safety and will give residents new rights to be able to raise building safety complaint, recognising key issues raised by the Grenfell Tower Inquiry, the Hackitt Review and the Welsh government’s own Building Safety Expert Group.

'Never repeated'

Commenting on the publication of the bill, CIH Cymru national director Matt Dicks said: “We must ensure that the horrific image of Grenfell Tower engulfed by flames, leading to the tragic loss of 72 lives — mums, dads, sisters, brothers, grandparents, Uncles, cousins, friends — is never repeated. 

“Rightly, we have had a public inquiry, an expert review headed by Dame Judith Hackitt and the Welsh government’s own expert panel on building safety looking at what went wrong and what we need to do to ensure that a tragedy like Grenfell never happens again."

He added: “CIH Cymru broadly welcomes the proposals set out in the bill, which will establish a new enforcement regime and confer new functions on local authorities, who will be the building safety authority for their area under the regime, and fire and rescue authorities.”

We will be engaging with our members in Wales as we feed into the Senedd committee’s scrutiny of the bill, including a member-exclusive webinar later in the summer (date TBC).