One concern I hear voiced regularly in the world of office development and fit-out is that, due to increased competitiveness in this sector, some specifiers are doing the bare minimum in terms of safety. Needless to say, this will cause issues down the line, when product fire ratings and safety records will be needed by building safety managers using strict new “golden thread” digital documentation, expected to become mandatory in the near future.

Although Grenfell was a wake-up call for all of us, the Building Safety Bill has mainly focused on the residential built environment. Commercial buildings’ regulations are still quite lenient, and there is ambiguity around what good fire safety systems management should look like today, and indeed how to be prepared for incoming building regulations.