Concerns have been raised about ambiguities in the information required at building handover for higher-risk buildings (HRBs).
HRBs must pass Gateway 3, the final mandatory checkpoint in the Building Safety Act 2022 regime, before they can be legally occupied. At this stage, the Building Safety Regulator (BSR) verifies that construction is complete and compliant, requiring contractors to submit “as-built” information, including drawings and other prescribed documentation.
However, ambiguity in the regulations, not fully remedied in guidance published by the BSR and Construction Leadership Council (CLC) in December, has prompted calls for clarification.
Sofie Hooper, deputy chief executive of APS, said: “The problem is that to receive a completion certificate the regulations require clients to deliver accurate information about the building work, but there is no explicit requirement or guidance about what ‘as-built’ information or records should be included, nor is there any requirement around ‘who’ should validate the ‘as-built information’.”
APS, part of a CLC occupation group raising the issue, says this is causing concern because clients do not typically pay designers to produce as-built drawings. Hooper added: “It is the duty of the client to make sure they put all the arrangements in place to make this happen.”
In response, the CLC Building Safety Group is considering a working group to develop clearer guidance, with APS calling for a definition to be included in the regulations.
Staged applications welcomed
The industry has, meanwhile, welcomed the BSR’s decision to allow staged applications at Gateway 2. In December, the BSR said this approach supports “progressive assurance of the works” and helps assemble the golden thread to enable a successful handover.
Architect and APS member Paul Bussey, senior technical consultant, AHMM, said staged approvals reduce risk by clarifying what is critical early on. “It’s effectively conditional approval which, together with approval with requirements, is what we used to have with building control,” he said.
However, Bussey warned the process remains complex, particularly for small projects within HRBs. “They still need far more information than before,” he said. “Architects are often stood down during construction, so they won’t update drawings at handover. Contractors aren’t generally equipped to do it either – although they could be.”
He added that while the principal designer must sign off that a building complies if built as-designed, it could be hard practically to do that if the PD at construction was not the original architect.
“The issue is causing a lot of discussion across the industry,” he said.
The concerns are being raised as the BSR became a standalone body in January, moving out of the jurisdiction of the HSE and paving the way for the introduction of a single regulator. It is also successfully tackling the backlog of applications at Gateway 2.
Applications had been facing long delays – up to 48 weeks, but chair Andy Roe said in January that it had now driven the time for Gateway 2 approval to be much closer to its stated aim of 12 weeks.
