Turn 22 safety advice notes into one document, Kerslake tells government

Bob Kerslake, the chair of Peabody housing association and former head of the civil service, has called on the new government to corral the 22 advice notes covering its building safety programme into a “single consistent document”. 

Speaking at Savills’ annual housing seminar in London yesterday, Kerslake said following the Grenfell disaster there was “still huge uncertainty around what is safe and what isn’t”.

The crossbench peer said: “Advice notes issued by the government have exacerbated the situation, particularly for leaseholders, since they cannot give assurance that previously-built stock is fully compliant with the new guidance,” he said.

Potentially hundreds of thousands of people were “living in mortgaged homes that are low risk but cannot be re-mortgaged, bought or sold”, he argued.

Kerslake, who also chairs Dagenham & Barking council’s regeneration outfit Be First, said consolidating all 22 of the government’s advice notes into a single document “would provide much-needed clarity not only for the sector, but also for surveyors and other professions who are understandably cautious about declaring whether a building is safe”.

The government could also commit to covering and contributing to the cost of remediation of buildings that were previously compliant and signed off at the time by the appropriate regulatory bodies, Kerslake said. “This would provide assurance to lenders and homeowners, as well as speed up the process of remediation,” he added.

Kerslake also said the “whole regulatory system needs fundamental reform. It’s simply not fit for purpose. Continuing the work underway on this must an urgent priority for the new government. Reforms have to be developed with the sector and [must be] the right ones.

“And while there’s no quick fix around building safety the government can do more to help make buildings safe, whilst we are reforming the system.”

Kerslake said the continuing need for the sector to respond to safety “will impact on our capacity to deliver on our other priorities, including new supply. We should be honest about this.” He said Peabody had spent £27m on fire safety work in the last year and expected this “to increase significantly in the future”.

The government would also need to increase grant levels if it wanted the sector to build more genuinely affordable homes. “Relying primarily on cross subsidy is just not going to deliver the numbers required,” he said.

And Kerslake urged the creation of a joint Green Buildings Taskforce between the new government and the sector “to ensure a just transition to zero carbon homes, so that poorer people are made worse off”.