Working together with residents on building safety
Homelife
December 2023
Following the Grenfell Tower tragedy, the government reviewed building regulations and fire safety measures. In their report, 'Building a Safer Future*', published in 2018, they talked about a new approach to managing fire and structural safety risks in high-rise apartment blocks.
Their review found that residents did not have enough say in the management of their buildings and outlined how they should play a more important role.
As a result, the Building Safety Act 2022 now aims to give you a stronger voice and opportunities to be involved in making decisions about the management of your building concerning fire and structural risks.
To make sure that residents can have their say on building safety, we worked with a group of residents from London and the North West of England, who helped us to produce a framework of how we will develop our engagement strategy. The framework is driven by their experience and aims to promote the ways you can take part in making building safety decisions.
Every one of our high-rise blocks will receive its own Resident Engagement Strategy produced in partnership with residents from that block. Our strategy puts resident voice central to every aspect of building safety and provides a wide range of opportunities for residents to actively take part in the ongoing safety of their building. Each strategy will involve a consultation period with residents.
The framework was developed through five online sessions with the resident group, who fed back on the language used in the document, how residents would like to receive the document, accessibility considerations and the visual display of the content.
One resident who took part said:
“Being involved in this opportunity has allowed me to gain an insight into what the Resident Engagement Strategy is aiming to achieve. Building safety is both the resident’s and the landlord’s responsibility and needs to be a partnership when creating a strategy like this.
"I would encourage other residents to get involved because if you don’t get involved, how are you going to make a change and share your experience?’’
Following guidance from the Building Safety Regulator, we anticipate completing the Resident Engagement Strategy for our tallest blocks by April 2024. We will look to produce strategies for our remaining blocks throughout the remainder of the year.
If you’d like to get involved in projects like this, please email our Resident Involvement team or complete our registration form to record your interest.