The government has published the long-awaited Independent Review of the Construction Product Testing Regime – with a major shake-up in the regulatory system likely to follow.
The Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (DLUHC) appointed former government chief construction adviser Paul Morrell and barrister Anneliese Day to examine how the UK’s system for testing the safety of construction products could be strengthened, following the 2017 Grenfell disaster.
The report said: “The most obvious gap in the current system is that only construction products for which there is a designated standard are covered by the Construction Products Regulation.”
This accounts for only one-third of all construction products in manufacture, leaving 20,000-30,000 products unregulated.
It added: “Many standards are outdated, inconsistent or non-existent.” Research in 2020 on behalf of DLUHC questions “the fitness for purpose of a number of standards critical for testing products for resistance and reaction to fire”.
Among changes already under way, there is to be new National Regulator for Construction Products, based in the Office for Product Safety within the Department for Business and Trade. It will work with the new Building Safety Regulator, based in the Health and Safety Executive.
