Fire safety regulations: no change in 20 years?

“The building regulations have not been changed for 20 years by successive Governments.”

BBC Question Time audience member, 22 June 2017

It’s unclear what the audience member means to refer to here.

All newly constructed or refurbished buildings must comply with the 2010 building regulations. These replaced older regulations from 2000, which had been amended a number of times. The government at the time said the 2010 regulations involved few substantial changes.

The fire safety guidance under these regulations is a separate publication—Document B—which was most recently updated with amendments from 2013, and has been updated several times in the past decade.

The government planned to update this document last year, in response to recommendations made to it following a fire at Lakanal House in London in 2009, in which six people died. It hasn’t been revised yet.

We’ve written about this in more detail here.