May of last year saw the publication of the final version of the Independent Review of Building Regulations and Fire Safety: Building a Safer Future, almost one year on from the tragic events at Grenfell Tower. The Hackitt report, as it is known, was broadly welcomed in its call for a radical rethink of the regulatory system but drew widespread criticism for its failure to recommend an outright ban on using flammable material to clad high-rise buildings.

The government acted swiftly and, within days of the final report, announced a public consultation on changes to the Building Regulations relating to the use of combustible cladding in high-rise residential buildings. The resulting regulations, Building (Amendment) Regulations 2018 (SI 2018/1230), came into force on 21 December 2018 and, in basic terms, prohibit the use of combustible cladding on new high-rise residential buildings. 

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