The Building Safety Act has raised standards for the right reasons, but to deliver the regime now needs greater predictability
The principle behind the Building Safety Act is not in question. After Grenfell, a tougher regime was necessary and no sensible developer or planner would argue otherwise. Registered Providers, developers and advisers all have a shared interest in safer homes and better accountability.
My concern is with how the regime now works in practice. In the places where housing need is sharpest and land is most constrained; we increasingly rely on building upwards. Yet once a scheme crosses the higher-risk threshold, the process becomes slower, more complex and less predictable.
London’s annual housing target is 88,000 homes, including 17,000 affordable homes, yet net completions in 2023/24 totalled just 33,989. In that context, any policy that discourages viable density deserves close attention.
When height becomes a risk
From Carter Jonas’ considerable experience, both in London and other cities, the issue is not that taller buildings should face more scrutiny. It is that crossing the 18 metre or seven-storey threshold can start to put viability under pressure. Gateway requirements, regulator approval, second staircase implications, redesign risk and longer determination periods all start to weigh heavily on viability.
Delay raises finance costs, affects land deals and weakens investor confidence. On a marginal urban site, a scheme which was viable at eight or nine storeys can quickly become problematic if the consequence of height is prolonged uncertainty.
That is already influencing behaviour, with some developers opting for mid-rise schemes that stay below the higher-risk regime. But this change of approach has a knock-on effect on density, just as the government, through the revised NPPF, is calling for higher levels of density. The risk is that schemes are devised to avoid the threshold, rather than the principles of good planning and development: what is best for the site and for housing requirements
The specific impacts for affordable housing
This has direct implications for affordable delivery, which will invariably be reduced when a scheme’s height or density is reduced.
Many Registered Providers are long-term owners and managers of homes, and they have their own safety, compliance and investment responsibilities. When programmes slip, designs change or costs rise late in the day, acquisition decisions become harder, funding windows narrow and tenure assumptions come under strain.
The cumulative burden on scheme viability is increased by the requirement for a second staircase and the Building Safety Levy adds another cost. Set beside affordable housing requirements, CIL, biodiversity net gain obligations, build cost inflation and a subdued sales market, the overall effect can be enough to move a scheme from viable to unviable. The recently closed Support for housebuilding in London consultation is an acknowledgement that the pipeline is under strain and that affordable output is suffering.
Change needed
The answer is not to row back on safety but to make the regime more proportionate, more predictable and better resourced. The Building Safety Regulator needs the capacity to deal with Gateway submissions more quickly and consistently. The regime should also distinguish more carefully between genuinely complex higher-risk buildings and simpler residential schemes that nevertheless cross a height threshold.
Finally, planning and building control cannot continue to operate as parallel systems with different assumptions and different timetables. Too many schemes secure planning consent on one basis and then encounter a second layer of uncertainty later. Better alignment would reduce abortive work, improve confidence and make delivery more likely.
A strong safety regime is non-negotiable. But if the practical effect is to deter height on the sites where intensification is most needed, London risks delivering fewer homes and fewer affordable homes. That is not in the interests of developers, Registered Providers or the households waiting for those homes.
Alister Henderson is a Partner at Carter Jonas
Photo: Jonny Gios
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