Construction products must be properly assessed before they can be used in the building process, the government has proposed, in a bid to end the ‘dishonest and misleading’ practices uncovered by the Grenfell Tower Inquiry.
The new general safety requirement (GSR) is set out in the Construction Products Reform White Paper, published by the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government on 25 February. According to this, only around a third of construction products are currently regulated.
The white paper adds that products falling under designated mandatory standards must continue to comply with these. For products not covered by these designated standards, a ‘proportionate, risk-based’ GSR will apply that addresses the ‘gaps in regulatory coverage that could allow unsafe products to be placed on the market’.
Under the GSR, manufacturers will be required to assess safety risks connected to the intended use and the ‘normal or reasonably foreseeable’ conditions of use of the product, and take proportionate action to ‘eliminate or control’ such risks. Further measures will apply where products are ‘critical’ to safe construction and a risk of ‘serious harm’ exists if something goes wrong.
Minimum third-party assurance and certification requirements will be introduced to increase transparency and ‘restore confidence’ in the system.
