Fire safety work being done to your building

The government has released a document called Advice Note 14, which tells owners of tall buildings to do a new investigation to ensure the ‘external wall system’ has been properly installed and maintained. The external wall system means cladding, insulation or any other material on the outside wall of your building.

The government advice notes are not clear and confusing even to experts, so we, alongside other large housing associations, are asking the government to clarify their advice. In the meantime, we’ve already started these investigations on some of our tall blocks (the advice note directs us to look at ones over 18 metres – around six storeys). This is for buildings with non-ACM cladding – the type on Grenfell Tower – as those buildings have already been investigated. For buildings that we haven’t started yet, we’re getting a schedule in place to do the investigations.

Investigations must be done by trained professionals and in some cases the system will need to be tested in an accredited test centre. Once investigations are complete, we will be issued with a report to confirm compliance or with some work that needs to be done to make the building compliant.

If you live in a tall building over 18m and you’ve not yet received information about the investigations, please bear with us while we confirm our schedule. We hope to write to you with more information in the new year. Please note, your buildings are still safe – where issues are found we will put any necessary interim measures in place and advise you of these at the time.

If you have any questions regarding your tall building, get in touch with our dedicated Building Safety Team who will be able to help. You can email them at buildingsafetyteam@networkhomes.org.uk.