More than 200 large panel system (LPS) tower blocks have been identified as requiring intensive safety-risk management by the Building Safety Regulator (BSR).
A spokesperson for the regulator told Construction News that since April last year, it had identified 202 LPS blocks requiring a Building Assessment Certificate (BAC) as higher-risk buildings (HRBs).
Today (31 March) is the deadline for owners to apply for an LPS-related BAC. On Friday (28 March), a BSR spokesperson told CN that the regulator had received a 93 per cent response rate – meaning that owners of 14 of the 202 LPS blocks had not yet applied for certification.
The spokesperson said: “BSR is actively investigating the small number of cases where safety case reports have not been received and will take the appropriate enforcement action where necessary.”
Sanctions available include an uncapped fine, imprisonment of up to two years “and a further fine of £200 per day after conviction until the BAC application is submitted”, Mark London, senior partner at law firm Devonshires, told CN.
“The intended purpose is not to investigate potential breaches of the Building Regulations by [the original] contractors or subcontractors,” he added.
A certificate is required to prove to the regulator that owners of LPS buildings in England – primarily councils and housing associations – are complying with Part 4 of the Building Safety Act (BSA) 2022.
This focuses on managing building safety risks in occupied HRBs, demanding that building owners create a framework for risk assessment, management and reporting.
Certification is required for blocks built with LPS between 1956 and 1973 with a gas supply “and where it was unclear if reinforcement work had been carried out” that are either:
- 30 metres to 49.9 metres high with more than 217 residential units.
- More than 50 metres high with more than residential units.
The BSR said it aimed to “reassess buildings and their corresponding BACs” every five years.
The regulator said it will usually take at least six months to process an application.
“However, this could happen sooner if significant changes are made to the building, incidents occur or building safety risks are identified,” it added.
LPS was commonly applied to high-rise housing blocks built in the 1950s and 1960s. Safety concerns centre on the risk of a gas explosion – as at Ronan Point in 1968 – or a fire risk from gaps in LPS structures.
Remediation measures range from the installation of fire sprinklers to strengthening the block with extra steel beams, James McCulloch, a partner at multidisciplinary consultancy Ridge, told Construction News.
The 202 blocks are a subset of the overall number of LPS tower blocks defined as HRBs more than 18 metres tall, but the BSR did not say when or whether certificates are needed for all of those buildings, as it said it would last year.
McCulloch said that 750 LPS blocks in this category – including 350 with a piped gas supply – was “not unrealistic”.