When the Queen’s Speech was delivered on 14 October 2019 the nation was watching to see how the Government intended to deal with the United Kingdom’s departure from the European Union. However, the speech also set out a proposed legislative programme for the 2019/20 Parliamentary session which includes proposals that will be of interest to property owners across the country.
Building Safety Standards Legislation
“My Ministers will… bring forward laws to implement new building safety standards.”
Following the Grenfell Tower fire in June 2017 the Government identified over 400 high-rise buildings within the UK that had unsafe Aluminium Composite Material cladding (the same type used on Grenfell Tower).
Learning the lessons from the Grenfell Tower fire the Government is looking to put in place new and modernised regulatory regimes for building safety and construction products. Through this the Government aims to bring about a fundamental change in the regulatory framework for high-rise residential buildings and to ensure that landowners are held accountable and responsible and that residents are safe in their homes.
The Government have proposed a new safety framework for high-rise residential buildings taking forward recommendations from the Hackitt review on building safety, and in some areas going further by:
- Providing clearer accountability for, and stronger duties on, those responsible for the safety of high-rise buildings throughout the building’s design, construction and occupation, with clear competence requirements to ensure high standards are upheld.
- Giving residents a stronger voice in the system to ensure that their concerns are never ignored.
- Strengthening enforcement and sanctions to deter non-compliance with the new regime in order to hold the right people to account when mistakes are made and ensure they are not repeated.
- Developing a new stronger and clearer framework to provide national oversight of construction products, to ensure all products meet high performance standards.
Additionally, the proposed legislation introduces a requirement that developers of new high-rise residential buildings must belong to a New Homes Ombudsman.
The implications on property owners here are clear. Any high-rise residential buildings such as blocks of flats or student accommodation will be required to meet the new regulations and non-compliance with the new regimes will incur strong sanctions for the landlords.
Telecommunications Infrastructure (Leasehold Property) Bill
“New legislation will help accelerate the delivery of fast, reliable and secure broadband networks to millions of homes”
Faster broadband networks (with speeds of up to a gigabit (1000 Mbps)) are one of the Government’s crucial aspects in the promotion of the UK’s future economic growth. To enable this, the Government has pledged £5billion to support the rollout of gigabit-capable connections in urban and rural areas.
To support this, the Government has proposed legislation to create a cheaper and faster light-touch tribunal process for telecoms companies to obtain interim code rights (or access rights) for a period of up to 18 months.
This follows on from the Government consultation in October 2018 which highlighted the risk of tenants being left behind due to a significant number of landlords failing to respond to requests for installation of equipment. Telecoms companies had been removing properties from their build plans due to lack of response to access requests from landlords. The operators were also not using the Electronic Communications Code’s existing procedures due to the cost and time involved in a full hearing at the relevant Tribunal.
The proposed legislation will allow the telecoms company to install broadband infrastructure into blocks of flats even where the landlord has repeatedly ignored requests by obtaining an order from the Tribunal. The order from the relevant Tribunal (known as a Part 4A order) will only be granted if the landlord has received two warning notices and a final notice.
This now means that a landlord can no longer just ignore requests from a telecoms provider and needs to be conscious that persistent lack of response to requests may lead to a Part 4A order being granted in favour of the telecoms company.
Another element of the Government’s proposed Telecommunications Infrastructure (Leasehold Property) Bill is the amending of the Building Act 1984 so that the Buildings Regulations will require all new build developments to have the infrastructure to support gigabit-capable connections.
According to Government statistics, 22% of new build developments in 2019 have been built without a gigabit-capable connection meaning that 40,000 new homes a year are built without full fibre.
For home builders this presents yet another hurdle to clear, as their developments will not achieve the necessary approval to progress until they have proven that they can achieve a gigabit network connection.
Alex Wilkins is a Solicitor in the Real Estate team at Sintons in Newcastle. Contact him on Alex.Wilkins@sintons.co.uk or 0191 226 3659.
