Huge week in cladding and building safety crisis as PAS 9980 remains unpublished while RICS refuse Government demands to amend EWS1 criteria

The week commencing 6^th December 2021 will go down as a major week in the ongoing cladding and building safety crisis as one thing that was expected to happen didn’t, while something that was unexpected did!

The publication of PAS 9980 was scheduled to begin on the 7^th December, as per the BSI website, but the 7^th (and 8^th!) came and went with no sign of the new fire risk assessment and appraisal standard.

On Thursday 9^th December, with many people clamouring for information, AliDeck reached out to BSI on Twitter and received a disappointing response; that there was “no definitive date for release”…

This news is extremely disappointing, as the publication of PAS 9980 and the withdrawal of the Consolidated Advice Note is crucial to moving the housing sector on from the current EWS1 stalemate. Of course, PAS 9980 might not necessarily solve all of the difficulties currently being experienced by building owners and property managers but until the full and final document is published, we simply cannot know the impact it will have.

The EWS1 scheme was a laudable attempt by the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) and industry to unblock the housing market for high-rise (above 18m) properties and to give banks the reassurances that their risk management policies require to lend money.

The fact that EWS1 was almost immediately derailed by the changing advice in the Government’s January 2020 Consolidated Advice Note is unfortunate but it is arguably scandalous that it has taken nearly two full years to get near to a resolution. Government have, of course, made various interventions throughout the EWS1 debacle and issued proclamations along the lines of “EWS1 isn’t required for buildings below 18m” or similar.

The most significant of these interventions was in July 2021 when then Housing Secretary Robert Jenrick MP reacted to the findings of an Independent Panel led by Dame Judith Hackitt.

The Panel had published a statement on “building safety in medium and lower-rise blocks of flats”. Strikingly, the statement included a recommendation that “EWS1 forms should not be required on buildings below 18 metres” and that “fire risk assessors, and lenders should not presume that there is significant risk to life unless there is evidence to support this”.

Mr Jenrick’s written statement concluded with the declaration that “the government sees no reason why an EWS1 form, or equivalent, should be requested on buildings below 18m” and that it was his “expectation that these actions will significantly ease the challenges faced by the vast majority of leaseholders looking to buy or sell flats in high-rise buildings”.

Following this statement, however, many lenders continued to require EWS1 for buildings of any height and RICS stated that until changes were made to the Consolidated Advice Note their EWS1 criteria would not be amended.

Last week, RICS announced finality on the matter with a declaration that, following consultation, the EWS1 criteria would remain untouched. The Consolidated Advice Note remains in place, despite the new Housing Secretary Michael Gove MP’s stated desire to withdraw it “by Christmas”, and it is a reasonable assumption that RICS has closely considered the draft version of PAS 9980 before making this announcement (an assumption perhaps supported by the fact that the RICS announcement was made in the same week that PAS 9980 was anticipated to be published?).

So, where do we stand? In short, nothing has changed, again…