‘Pendulum has swung too far’ on building regulations since Grenfell, says Reform housing spokesperson

Reform UK’s new housing and infrastructure spokesperson has said the “pendulum has swung too far” on building safety regulations since the Grenfell fire and indicated his party’s willingness to reassess the system introduced in its aftermath.

Simon Dudley, a fomer Homes England chair and Conservative council leader, joined Reform UK earlier this year and was recently handed a policy brief by its business and energy spokesperson Richard Tice.

In an interview with Housing Today, to be published tomorrow (2 April), Dudley said “too much regulation” in the UK was “stifling development”.

Dudley, who is also a former chair of for-profit RP Square Roots and the Ebbsfleet Development Corporation, singled out the Building Safety Regulator as an example of something created with the “best of intentions”, but which “effectively is stopping development of high rise buildings”.

Addressing the 2017 Grenfell Tower fire, in which 72 people died, Dudley said that it was “an absolute tragedy” and a “failure of various stakeholders”, but that “the pendulum has swung too far”.

The Building Safety Regulator, which is one part of a multi-faceted reform of the building safety system post-Grenfell, took over the regulation of high-risk buildings in 2023.

However, it has drawn ire for its failure to process cases within statutory requirements, leading to an overhaul last year.

“People die on the roads because people drive cars, but we’re not stopping people driving cars,” he said. “So why are we stopping houses being built because of previous tragic deaths?”

Other aspects of the wide-ranging building safety reforms introduced since Grenfell include clearer legal duties for building owners, expanded risk assessment requirements and tighter product safety rules. The reform process is ongoing and is expected to lead to the creation of a single regulator for construction, as well as increased regulation of certain professions. 

Asked whether Reform UK would repeal or strip back the raft of building safety reforms introduced since Grenfell, Dudley said that this was ”a policy decision we will arrive at”.

He added: “In the case of the Building Safety Regulator, can you modify it so it both performs faster, does its job, properly, protects people, but doesn’t stop development?

“Or is the solution which has been arrived at there so incorrect that you need to do something more dramatic with the Building Safety Regulator?

“We’re looking at that and clearly we’re very aware of the emotional and political sensitivity around that, given the Grenfell backdrop.”