The UK Government in April this year enacted the Building Safety Act 2022.
The new Building Safety Bill is in response to the Dame Judith Hackitt’s review of Building Regulations and Fire Safety, which highlighted a need for significant cultural and regulatory change following the Grenfell Tower Disaster.
The Act covers [1]
- buildings with 7 or more storeys or that are 18 metres or higher, and either: have at least 2 residential units and or are hospitals or care homes (during design and construction)
- giving dutyholders clear accountability and statutory responsibilities as buildings are designed, built, refurbished and occupied
- a golden thread of building information – identified, stored and updated throughout the building’s life cycle
- mandatory reporting of prescribed fire and structural safety occurrences to BSR
One key aspect of these reforms is the requirement for a ‘golden thread of information’, with safety considered at every stage of a building’s lifetime’. This will cover the earliest stages of the planning and design process through to construction, completion and occupation of high-rise buildings.
A draft set of golden thread principles [2] includes a number of key aspects, including:
- Accurate and Trusted
- Single point of truth
- Secure
- Accountable
- Understandable/ Simple to access
- Longevity/ Durability of information
- Relevant / Proportionate
While the use of BIM technology is referred to throughout much of the policy papers it also seeks to cover other information and the management processes (or steps) used to support building safety. This means that a BIM file may not be sufficient to meet the criteria. In short the ‘Golden Thread’ is likely to look more like a Building Manual which incorporates not only BIM files and Plans but also other critical information such as the ‘project narrative’ which would include safety in design risk assessments, commissioning, certificates, warranties and simple things like a help and contact list.
If you would like to know more about making the “Golden Thread’ a simple yet effective process talk to the Team from WebFM UK about OmTrak
[1] https://www.hse.gov.uk/building-safety/regulator.htm
[2] https://www.cibse.org/media/i2fbss2x/golden-thread-defintion-and-principles.pdf