It is now just over seven years since the Grenfell Tower tragedy. It is time to reflect on how the industry has responded and how we, as designers, need to continue to do our best to understand the new legislation now in place.

The Hackitt review and Grenfell Tower Inquiry have exposed substantial faults within our industry. The Building Safety Act and associated secondary legislation was introduced as a result, outlining stringent new roles, among them the Building Regulations principal designer (BRPD) and a stronger regulatory framework to ensure safety and accountability.

For designers, the new legislation is not fundamentally different. We must design to meet the Building Regulations as we always needed to. The onus, however, has shifted for us to prove compliance with the regulations, switching from a reactive to a proactive process. This can only be a good thing for certainty during construction and building compliance more broadly.