This month sees the enactment of the final elements of the Building Safety Act 2022, which makes wholesale changes to how the UK ensures building safety.

The Act implements the Government’s fundamental reform of the building safety system and gives effect to policies set out in the “Building a Safer Future” consultation response, published in April 2020. This detailed how to implement the recommendations of Dame Judith Hackitt’s Independent Review of Building Regulations and Fire Safety, published in May 2018 following the awful Grenfell fire.

We welcome the Act, in particular the creation of a regulator for construction products; this measure is key to achieving the revolution in building technology required to modernise our homes, offices, factories, schools and hospitals. Along with our colleagues at Freeths Solicitors, we have been studying the new regulations, and considering how we can guide our clients through the new regime.

It is very clear that the new regulations will give further momentum to MMC (Modern Methods of Construction), and that they will benefit both Category 1 (box or volumetric systems) and Category 2 (panel-based systems). Contrary to the impression given by the collapse of several high profile MMC companies, modular housing is gaining pace. In their latest report, the NBS and Glenigan show that the proportion of construction projects using MMC is steadily increasing, up from 50% in 2021 to 57% in 2023.

The doomsayers in the traditional building sector are coming to terms with the future. The drivers of the changes are many, but key among them is the availability of labour. Governments of any colour can set as many housing targets as they like, but without labour availability, they cannot be met. This is to say nothing of planning delays, land availability, nimbyism, regulations and so on. This momentum towards MMC is further boosted by the new Act: the need for pre-construction product specification, eradication of waste and buildings’ environmental performance all require it.

It’s a little-known fact that the housing targets had their origin in the early Noughties Treasury; the number of new homes required was set in order to steady house price inflation. The actual number of new homes needed is a function of demography, and with a new migration figure last year of 672,000 and 745,000 the year before, the housing target of 300,000 is irrelevant and is, in fact, not much more than a soundbite. Several influential reports have suggested a new way of setting housing targets, especially involving repurposing of empty homes and buildings, and looking at the number of bedrooms needed in the new homes.

We should welcome these new regulations as a platform for providing new homes and modern buildings which we actually have a chance of realising, unlike the phantasmic housing targets of both the Government and the Opposition.