The New Rules of High-Rise

Hi everyone and welcome back to the building Brun Podcast. I'm your host Conor Nolan and on this podcast I'm going to be finding out about development updates taking place across the region and looking at latest themes and trends happening across the construction in the shrie. Three years into the building safety act we asked the question everyone's thinking is the high rise market stabilising or we just better at coping with the chaos. We caught up with Weedon Architects Dave Anderson and Perito Projects Cully Badra to explore why Gateway 2 can still feel like a postcode lottery and whether confidence is truly returning across the country. We get straight into the pressure points, shifting expectations on design detail, stretched regulator resources and approvals that land with the requirements but no clear time line. How do you price, program and thunder projects when the goal posts keep moving and what happens when approval pathways change half way through a life scheme. A big thank you to our building brum Podcasts series supporters, reality capture and point cloud modelling specialists, scantak digital, solace one of your case leading suppliers commercial flooring their mortals, e.h. Smith Architectural Solutions, brick and façade specialists and some bell rentals with over 1.5 million items of equipment, their largest providers of equipment hiring UK. Hi Cully, hi Dave, welcome, welcome both of you to the building brum podcast. It's really good to have you on the show today. Thank you for taking the time to come to the North Spring studio. What do you think of the podcast studio? Cool. Very nice not being in one before. It is nice isn't it? It's great. It's a really great great space to be able to have these. I just heard your teams notify everyone you just got a message. Let's get that turned off Dave. The, um, no, it's really good to have you on the show today. I thought really good to bring you both together really and connect you both because you've got such connected experiences when it comes to the pain that is the building safety act and gateway to submissions. And Cully, when you would tell me about how you got there, one of the fastest approvals at the time, was it, could we say just under 13 weeks or do we say 12 weeks? Well, officially we have to say 13 weeks, but it was like 12 days and sorry 12 weeks and five days. So, but yeah, have to sort of say 13 weeks, but just under and at the time that was the fastest for a period. Absolutely. Yeah, it was unfortunately that record has that record now been beaten. Okay. I mean, I hope so because that's what we want, right? We want these approvals to happen within the 12 week period or sooner. So I hope that there are more schemes out there that I hope so too. Yeah. Because the pain's people have been going through. And I mean, I thought when you were telling me that and you're your experience in Dave, I've seen you wax lyrical about the building safety act to present and though you're two cents across at round tables, I thought it great to bring you both together for this opportunity to, yeah. Definitely. Yeah. To talk all about it and the pain. The pain you've been on the last 12 to 18 months has everything's been kind of changing. Well, that's that's the thing. Are we in a, it's been 18 months now really kind of everyone kind of finding their feet and getting through it. Are we in a more stable position now? Do we all feel a lot more easier about the building safety act and tackling it? We're definitely in a different position to where it was right at the start. I think the first six months, the regulator themselves will probably admit that they didn't have the resource or understanding of what was about to hit them. So there was a lot of early stage governmental teething problems as they worked out exactly how they were going to interpret the legislation themselves. But then from about six to nine months onwards, we've seen a lot more of an engaged active, proactive regulator that's been willing to come and talk to us and not sit there in their bubble. And then as other industry bodies such as the CLC or build UK have kind of provided guidance and steering on what is actually needed, they, the building safety regulator has improved, but also the standard of the applications has improved because we've had a better understanding now of what they are actually looking for. So yes, and it's been a lot of pain. Certainly for some developers, it's really been touching go with schemes that have been stuck. Will we ever get gateway to approval? But I think at the moment there's a sense that everything, certainly a gateway to level. I mean, gateway through is a completely different story that we're all moving in the right direction. And both of you, how many applications, how many submissions have you both put in for a gateway to? And total, would you say, can you say that that's a fair? Well, I've had three, two approvals in one rejection. We've put in five applications, so far one approval and the other four are going through the approval process. But we, the schemes that we've worked on are not probably the ones that sort of Dave worked on previously. So as I relatively say in the last 12 months. Right. Okay. So one thing Dave that you picked upon is that communication piece. I think when this all sort of started in terms of the gateway process, there was, there was no communication. I mean, you would submit an application. And you wouldn't hear anything. Didn't Dave, you mentioned like 25 weeks or something. You didn't hear anything. Whereas my experiences of our team's experiences, because we've come in sort of more recently after that backlog, we've had better communication. So when we've submitted, we've had validation at a quicker rate. We've had that communication piece. We've had sort of MD team teams appointed sooner. Right. Okay. So in terms of stability. It's world apart then from when first going into it. Definitely. Definitely. And I think he's understandably how they got to the position that they want because political pressure to bring in such, you know, signature legislation. But in hindsight, I'd like to think the government and even the BSR would have said, you should have started more slowly. Should have been 10 beta projects. Should have maybe been buildings over 30 meters for the first six months. So they could find their feet rather than a sense of feeling that the first applications you were putting in was also the first time they were learning how to employ an MD team or how to do this or that. So understandably wanted to get some legislation. You know, it's good to see in the public's perception that everything's getting stricter and everything's getting safer. But were they ready to do it at the start? No, we're near. But then when it came for when you you were starting your submissions, then all of a sudden there was a big change. And I think that change occurred. I think maybe August September last year where there was this new innovation hub that was formed. And since then, I would say that the communication piece has improved and that time frame, especially up to sort of December last year because I think there was a big push. I think if you look on the sort of scale of London, for example, and you're going to have to correct me on the actual figures here. But I believe last year there were supposed to be 80,000 HRB units in construction last year. Yep. But in fact, there was 1500. Okay, this is a scale. 80,000 to 1500. Yes, that's the scale. That's wild. That's that is wild. These are wild numbers. But this is that was the reality. If you look at the data, you know, say England versus like London versus other key capital cities in the world, we've dropped significantly in terms of our construction output significantly. Look at the chart. And it's really important to link it all together. Yeah. Because actually the political statements have we've got to produce 1.5 million homes. Great. Brilliant. We all need those. But then if you then put a massive blocker in the way that then prevents you being able to build HRBs because developers go, well, actually, I don't know when I'm going to get permission for this. And I, my funding, my expire or my interest rate may go up. It perversely then puts more pressure on Greenbelt and so called Graybelt because it's easier to build out there because you own a HRB and then you're ending up with cities and Birmingham is a prime example of prime MDC size waiting to be developed. But the developer market and the funding market thinks there's too much risk here. I don't know when I'm going to get a return on my development because the olden days used to be planning was the risk point. Yeah. And you don't know how long that's going to take. But actually once I've got planning and I'm good to go and know what we're going to do. Well, actually over the last 12 months, that's then also added to Gateway 2 being a risk is I don't know when I can start sites, which means that they put them off even more. So the whole thing has to be looked at together. And they always usually that things like this and this kind of legislation, it's unintended consequences. You are trying to build better and safer housing for all of the right reasons and something needed to happen. They can't stress that at all. The principles of the building safety act are absolutely spot on. But if you make it too hard or the bits are in place, you end up with building less houses, which results in more homelessless, increasing house prices, it then has more social impact than before. Yeah. It gets really difficult to kind of say you say one thing, but then block one way, you get stuck. But hopefully, but say from where was 80 months ago, where it is now and the kind of the speed in which application has been validated, you say it on the way and you put in a submission on the Friday and it was validated. Yeah. Well, the Monday, yeah, we put one in on Monday and it's been validated on the Tuesday. That's great. That's step one improvement. Yeah. Great. But we need to have that consistency all the way through, all the way through. These time frames, we've got to work together with the BSI to make sure that we can adhere to these time frames. And I think for me, my concerns are on the BSI side and I'm sure you'll probably get to it. Is resource? Yeah. How are they? We've got X amount of schemes that are coming in with submitting. That's great. Validation has improved. But what about the next steps? What about assembling your team? We already know that in terms of building control, that sort of specialism there was already, you know, we didn't already have enough resource there. And what we do know now is that there's even less people in the industry because there was a lot of exams that were required. That was it. Everyone had to adhere to everyone had to resubmit, didn't they? Yeah. They had to reregister. That was it. Yeah. They had to then do some further exams to demonstrate your competence to be an RBI. How many people at that point in the industry were thinking, right, I've done 20, 30 years? I've just left. I'm going to just left. That's it. All became advisors. Yeah. It was more pay less, less responsibility. And anything that goes into timing and planning all out rightfully tried to do a lot of things all at once. But if you turn off the tap to this one whilst also making it more complicated, you're going to ultimately lead to more more issues. And actually, when I point, I don't think we have a scheme in the office where there isn't some form of lack of resource from building control, be it not turning up for site inspections or being able to process something or it's all the way through. And these not just HRBs, I think we get a little bit stuck in our kind of gateway HRB world because that's the world we're in. But you filter that down to the person doing the house extension or the person doing the small works. There is building control pressures at every single point. And you've seen these pressures nationally, like these or the pressures kind of different geographically, is there a postcode lottery on the type of response that you get when it comes, how quickly it comes? So I think, yes, I think that there is going back to that consistent point. I don't believe from what I've witnessed that there's a consistent approach from the MDT teams, from your BSR lead. It's improving. But going back to that 13 week approval, I think that went really well because we had such a strong BSR lead. We had such a great MDT team. And what was different about that was that BSR lead was right from the outset, set out clear deadlines and goals. And we all committed to that. So they set the program? They set it. They said, right, by this date, we're going to have to get our fire consultation out because you've got three weeks. It was just brilliant to see that level of coordination, communication. And that, unfortunately, is not consistent across everything. So you do get variables. You get variables because you have different MDT teams. Regionally, you have different local fire authorities that have their own view as well. So sometimes there can be that subjective review of your application. Well, from from that point, if you've got somebody that's coming out and setting out a clear program being like, right, this is how we're going to work towards. That's great. You've got that real kind of leadership from that point of view of the coming from the source really. But Dave, is that common in, do you see that in your presentation? There's definitely a variation between where you are, where your case officer or your lead is sitting. Now, some of it is down to some of the more regional ones have so many projects to look through. And I have sympathy for the civil servants and the people who are working there that I'm getting emails and approvals from them at like 10 o'clock at night. But just because they're trying to clear the backlog. Well, that's that's no way of working people should know we had in it. Exactly. So you were always sympathetic to your lead or your contact at the BSR because you know the absolute pressure that they are under to deliver. And it does come back to a kind of resourcing level. And you can see that the changes that have happened over the last six months is they can't train up people quick enough because you have to be experienced really to understand really looking at because in some instances you are looking at kind of PhD level of smoke control or how's it going to work or well times for people who might have disabilities as to how they quickly they can get out of apartments. It gets very advanced. It gets very scientific for very right reasons. But you can't get to that level of knowledge quickly. So you can't just turn on a tap and go right there's another thousand building control officers on that. So some of the things that's kind of followed on from the government you can see that they're trying to plug the gaps or the resources you should by doing things extra. So approval with requirements was something that was never really considered right at the start. It was always going to be approval and that's it with no conditions. What's approval with requirements then? So essentially it's approval with conditions but don't call it conditions it's requirements. So it used to be or the intention was that you would submit everything the whole design everything's fixed off you go you don't change that now. Now they realize that the majority of H.R.B.'s or work in the gateway to world was going to then be designed and build. You may not have the answers for everything at the time of which you submit your application. And that was generally frowned upon which meant that developers and contractors were having to spend a fortune upfront in kind of fees for their specialist design teams for Smoke, Sprinkler, Assad, whatever it may be. But they didn't know when they were going to get permission. So you're putting extra additional financial burden on all of the supply chain because the suppliers and and details, especially so we're doing work going well okay this is a good way to get the job but didn't actually know that the job was ever going to happen or when it was going to happen. So now you can kind of put forward and go well these are my requirements these are the bits that I know we haven't designed to the nth degree ready for construction but the reason for that is because of XYZ. So when you now get your approval notice you will get a list of requirements or conditions that you then are asked to submit additional information at the relevant point or agreed dates within the program which then allows you to start your foundations but still be able to work through other bits of the design. So here's a question and on that just in terms of the regulator do they have a time frame to respond back in terms of we've set out dates approval requirements? Can week is effectively we want to let us say it's to the facade we haven't got the full detail to the facade but we'll get it in 12 months time we're going to submit we're going to place out orders for the facade comes back to that design and build sort of process will they come back and say right that's fine Dave we'll we'll respond within eight weeks and then you can go ahead I just just want to work out from a delivery point of view how do we make sure that we de-risk that process because I think it's a great thing because it gives us flexibility but how do we get that commitment from the regulator that they will give us the responses so we can place those orders and then we can start our full procurement and get everything on site. So there's always going to be risk obviously still with requirements that if you haven't had anything from the regulator and you still place an order they could still turn around and say actually no we don't agree with the principles of the facade calculations or whatever it may be. Requirements is one of those interesting examples where the idea is great it works but the infrastructure that supports that idea isn't in place so a prime example is that to do a gateway to application you essentially log on to a dock of style website very similar to how you do your car tax and you upload documents in there and then you submit the application application goes through you come back and then you're allowed in the portal and through the portal you can make change control applications you can change duty holders but you can't submit requirements information because they haven't set that up to be able to do it. So you end up with requirements sending it directly to your case officer to have a look at it and you have kind of backwards and forwards communication with them to get it to a point. There is no timeframes associated with that currently which presents the risk but it's that kind of if you just set up the portal to be able to do it it would be so much easier for it to be processed and if you go back to the kind of right to the front early days of how it's all about the golden thread and a document management and making sure everything's controlled the worst culprit for that is the government's own website or portal that they use. It is so basic it is so clunky it is so broken that actually it's all very well kind of going we haven't got enough building control officers or this this one did. If you spent some money on a decent portal from a leading CD provider and I'm not going to name names given but given by advertising it could solve half the issues. We're aware of blockages that your information may have been stuck in the system before to five weeks before it even gets sent to your MDT but if that was all processed with a with a proper portal that blockage stops that means it's less work for your overstretched case officer. It's like they haven't been given the right tools to deal with it and I think the one thing they have vastly underestimated is how much information we have to submit and upload to justify. It's thousands of documents isn't it? That's what you're uploading. How do you expect somebody on the other side to be able to navigate their way through all of this information when we come because we've been partied to the project so we understand but that way the way that that portal is set up it's it's like trying to make a tough job of reviewing and checking even harder. I complete it makes complete sense this idea to just improve the software, the tools that are there to upload that's such a simple seems like such a quick win. Why is it not happening? He's hitting the wrong people. Yeah. Dave, who do you need to call to jump on that? Because that's the then itself the impact it's it's not like they'll have on the program the stress levels everything the cost of stress to just get up get this done. There is still some I truly believe some low hanging fruit that could be done with a little bit of infrastructure investment that would significantly improve how the system works without the need for amendments to legislation or civil servant high level drop down dickpates going you must do this and this it would it would it would at a stroke solve a lot of issues. So at the moment you can only upload PDF you can't upload any of the type of file so say for example UCFD model you can upload the report you can't upload any of the files that associate with it and every time you have a submission or you know you get responses back the engineer needs to see those files so we end up sending like a wheat transfer for example because it's such a big file but simple things like that why is it no facility to be able to upload different types of documents? I mean designers work with different files and and they need it when they're doing their review so just make sense but it's not set up in that way I mean there has been an improvement so let's you've got to talk about the improvement as well because I think when we when it was first set up you had to upload each individual file so then itself and you're so when you're talking about thousands of thousands I'm talking about thousands it would take what oh I heard an architect say it took them about a week to upload everything it was that clunky day in day out doing the uploading process one I mean that's terrible has improved so we have to talk about it has been printed and post and like oh yeah think of all the trees think of the trees yes the yeah well that is okay so there has already been changes and improvements just to circle back to that approval with was it approval with requirements with requirements? Not conditions remember that requirements how does that so say you go through you've made your submission you've gone through the process you get approval with requirements but you knew that was come in because you weren't providing that set out information that it needed to have full approval and you wanted to get the approval with requirements and not go for a deferral because of the impact that that would have on the program and now you can move forward are you then in a position to start the build with if you've got approval with requirements and at what point can you how does that come a pad is that requirements bit play out in terms of can you start? You can start any of the work that isn't covered by the requirements so you would always have a discussion with them so you would hope that your requirement isn't the first one is please submit details of your foundations yes because otherwise no one can start whatsoever but you know take the ones that we've got it's some clarification on on CFD or smoke it's some clarification on the wind load enough some cladding on the 40th floor for whatever what you're doing is enabling you to well do things you get you go way to approval so the developer of can go to their funders and go right I'm good to go we're locked in now you're able to get your construction contract in place if it isn't already and get your contractor starting but you're buying some time basically so you're going well actually my first requirement isn't until week 12 of my build sequence actually whilst the application has been processed I've already been working in the background to get that information because that's what's been happening a lot of time you know you kind of starting to get a feel with the RFIs or the questions that you get back from the regulator where your requirements are going to sit and actually I'm seeing your new applications and whether you've been doing this is actually a form where you're setting out what your requirements are so you already are identifying where your gaps are in the approval that you are hopefully going to get which means that you can then get your design team working away in the background during that 12 14 20 week period as the BSR then processes the application itself but do you have the confidence in the BSR to turn around so say you start your build and you'll come into the program and you'll come into that point in which you need those requirements to be a you've submitted you need them approved but if you don't get that from there then all of a sudden your contract has to stop. I think I think day one thing that you mentioned was hope that we hope it gets approved delivery team got a full confidence that we were working to a plan we know what we need to get pulled together get it submitted that's how we deliver we work to key milestones submit we hope it gets approved on time because there is no time frame for them to approve we would be solely relying on the relationship that we do have with our BSR lead the communication that we have and we hope that it will get approved and I will say in our instance I think there is an understanding from the regulator when we are coming to them and say look we've had this requirement for eight weeks or whatever we need to get on with this there's a bit of flurry of emails backwards and forward wait. Six months ago we were talking about 40 week weights though and this is like there's a lot of it feels like there's a lot of risk still there if yes it's down from the communications day and you're six months ago back in July or whenever it was June and people are gosh I've not heard any comments back for Gary two and it's week 36 now like we're worried but now we're talking eight weeks that's great for me. I think that approve would requirements you have to look at it holistically because they've you said about a funder as well about if you don't sort of make a move on getting this application in what's the what's the holistic risk here? Is that could you potentially lose your funding? Could you lose your contractors fixed price? Could you lose some contractors along the way? Does the project sort of fall because now you're just waiting because you're trying to get everything all in at once? It's that calculated risk approach that you will you know you have to sort of take so that approval with the requirements does give us you know a bit more flexibility which I think is a positive. Yeah I think my point is more I want the regulated to also give us a bit of certainty with this flexibility fantastic but give us a bit more certainty on what that process looks like like you said there's no sort of official way to upload this onto the portal. We're having to do this by email how does that time with the golden thread? Let's just make sure that this this flexibility that we've introduced which is a positive thing make sure that it's got a full execution all the way through so that we we know how to deliver this. I mean you can flip it the other way from the regulator so the part of it is all about you you're putting on us on responsible competent people to deliver and design buildings to a manner that would be expected for a personal individual company of that size. So from a pragmatic approach if you're comfortable that your paperwork is in order and you've got all your trackers and you've got your statements and you've got your design and you've gone through the design and the design has been peer reviewed and all that kind of stuff and you've got that all documented. You do end up in a position where you go to the regulator well I've covered all my bases I know I'm being competent here I've got all my specialists to say this is is is compliant so actually if you're not willing to come back to me on these requirements actually we're just going to have to set out the picture say what we've done and now as long as you haven't made anything glaring an error in anywhere and there there should be some confidence to be able to have a robust conversation with the regulators they were look I know what I'm doing I think we're in the right place here I think I've deemed to show compliance can we just come to agreement that this requirement information is sufficient and on we go and it's clearly those kind of it's getting in line with what you're saying about how you're putting everything forward but it's that point which to have the conversation with the regulator do you find you're having the conversation with the regulator often yeah and it's kind of it's going your way I think it's different it comes back to it's it's not like I said that let's go back to that 13 week approval yep that was great in that RFIs which issued we reviewed those RFIs we responded within the time frame literally two two days after we got a meeting with the MDT team we were able to have a sensible conversation they wanted clarification and it just went smoothly you know it's back and forth they responded timely we did on other applications I can't say it's been as smooth because the interpretation of what we've submitted or the design team contractors have submitted some of the responses that I've come back from the regulator have been quite subjective in terms of their own interpretation but it comes back to what we you know Dave said it's down to us it's our scheme it's down to the design team the client team the contractor to demonstrate compliance which is what we stand by this scheme is a compliance scheme but yet we're getting feedback that is sort of poking and priding but on a subjective you know we use certain building regulations building standards codes that's how we've got to the point where we've got to but I have had some instances where that's been opened up to challenge it beyond the regulation and I think that's where we come to a bit of a clash are we talking it's been challenged from a design point of view is that it's a compliance point of view and it's an interesting thing that actually comes back to another issue is that this country's building regulations are quite subjective it's a requirement only it'll save this building shall stand up this building from mean that you can safely escape from it and so all of the documentation that you use are design guidance or a route to show your compliance now you can go through the approved documents which is our where or the building regulations are set out there's contradictions in themselves because they're quite political so whenever there's a certain item they'll add another letter or the lock data section but they don't update all of the sections all at once so I can be looking at one section that says well 2024 says this but the other section over there that was done in 1984 hasn't been updated yet so you're always having a subjective argument and then you bring in British standards and other bits of complicate and you end up with quite a web of compliance in order to show that you're building is safe and I think and then the government are doing this they are starting to go through the process of everything that if you make the rules so complicated it then makes it very difficult or it makes it take longer to be able to show compliance I think that's one of the things that we hopefully will see improvement in as people kind of this review of building regulations is undertaken if people are slightly clearer there's less subjective there's less politics which would be really good and we've got technical rather than kind of like let's do this let's do this it should then mean that we have less of these arguments because actually we're just talking to them and go have you done this yes no have you done this yes no whereas at the moment it's like I am following this route to compliance others may follow that route but I do that route to be quite compliant because of XYZ and that then is where you get into debate and discussion but from that though are you getting the you coming across situations where you're being challenged on the design decisions beyond the compliance that's that you're saying yes yes by people you're the designers you're the you're the you're the project manager you're the delivery side are from from that point of view of are they accepting design responsibility then if you're making changes the legislation is very clear on this and this is where it gets into a very blurred boundary as it can be played both ways and we do say see them play it both way in theory all the design responsibility and the culpability sit with the design team and the competent consultants and therefore you put it all forward and you say right this is how I think everything works but then you get someone a case officer an MBT who then goes I don't agree with that that's not how I view it but I do view it in my way so tell me why you think I'm wrong given this is what my professional opinion is there's an interesting one it's about two years ago we went to a lecture from one of the expert witnesses from the Grenfell inquiry and he said one of the things that the industry needs to absolutely question is not really the competency of their own team but the competency of the people who are ultimately checking your design information because sometimes we don't know who's checking our design information and I could tell you some stories but I can't do that's absolutely go out but it's interesting that actually everyone in that from the checker to the designer to the client to the contract all has to have that level of competency and but all that competency also has to be open to interrogation and actually sometimes we just don't get to see who is checking our information. We don't know do we we don't know until sometimes some of the emails come in from the MDT team from anything that we've submitted today no one has provided us with the MDT team's competence or you know had they worked on this type of case. You don't get to see CVs and things. Absolutely not we've not seen anything nothing's been declared disclosed to us. Just like go against golden thread information sharing of like your mental understanding if you're on this journey together. It does I will add the caveat that I'm not suggesting that anyone that we've dealt with from the BSR has in any way been questioned on their competency that they've been great they've been really helpful but you are do hear things and you do wonder sometimes where that question is coming from and it can sometimes come from the commentary from the local fire brigade different fire brigade have different requirements across the country one would think that solving a fire in London is the same as certifying say a fire in Manchester yet they might have completely different thoughts on how your building is safe that's what gets confusing you make it centralized but then decentralize it to different parts of the country how it behaves and has legislation it then makes it more complicated. I think it is about transparency as well because when we submit our submissions we have to declare the competence of the principal designer the principal contractor the client the fact that the client is satisfied with the competence of their team you know there's a there's a full process a declaration that has to be submitted with with all of our submissions but I would say that there is I'm not clear on that sort of transparency on the other side but like like you said it's I'm not questioning that because I'm not necessarily come across that but I do wonder why that's not the same on the other side I don't know what that check is that the BSR are making on their side to ensure competence we I don't know what that process looks like. So that's really I think that's a really interesting kind of point that you're looking at it's almost like there's a double standard there where you're submitting all your information this is this is who we are but the people check in the work themselves it's you're right it's what you said before about when the conference that you went to two years ago Dave when they said about the who are the assessors well let's get their profiles and and I took I think if from another from another point of view if you look at the procurement and the impact on delivery and the impact on cost that that this process is having from a from a gateway to submission standpoint is it is it taking procurement into consideration when you're when you're making these because we don't believe it is at the start I think it was viewed in isolation and people from different industries came in to help write this legislation be it from the nuclear industry or the chemical industry petrochemical now those are they have lots of big players and whereas construction varies from the individual in a van all the way up to a multinational foreign owned multi division kind of group of companies and that's the bit that it kind of sometimes struggles with because how does how does your plaster demonstrate competency for example when he's you know he's the van when he's plastering or they are a van they're not necessarily have the the way of being able to demonstrate their competencies just on the skill of their work it is it is it is difficult I don't think most HRBs would have traditionally been procured down a design and build route yep and it could be argued and I would probably be one of those that they went too far down the design following the build and that's where we came on stock but you still have to understand that if you're a developer and goes right I've got to spend x million of pounds to get this to decide and I've got to do x y z but there's a chance that it doesn't happen and you then you increase the amount of millions of pounds that you have to spend to get the design to the point of view there's a point where the risk return falls away and actually then you go well you don't build anything you go and do something else I go and invest in another another another country with different regulations or whatever it is there's difficulty got it's got to look at that whole picture now there's some things that are coming and it's been encouraged and is encouraging to see changes to guidance and legislation that's followed on so for example the the see I'll see the construction leadership council before Christmas in as put forward this idea of a stage gateway approval so the idea of that if you don't actually have to have absolutely everything designed which was the original intention of the gateway you can do it in stages so what we see it as and I think most of the industry does is the ability where actually I'll go I'll do my foundations and my piles in real detail so yes I've got to spend some money with the pileings of contractor and the structural engineers to get that done but the rest of the building can be done as design principles only so getting back really to just a consultant team design what that means then is obviously you're then not having to pay all the hundreds of thousands of pounds for all the specialist designers until you've got your first stage of your gateway locked in the nice thing about that is once that's locked in go to funder go or technically they have got my first stage of my gateway I technically can get my contractor starting with the pile in and the floor slab but also I'm locking in the rules and principles of that design is there a time like this is there a what you've got that first first approval is it like plan a permission you've got three years and three years to go with it and I understand that because otherwise when we have seen developers play the game where you sit on the site and you lock it into legislation or part LLB from 15 years ago and then start building it now that's not right I can understand why the three years limit is there but the three years gives developers contractors designers consultants breathing space and certainty I kind of come back to the point that one of the fundamental issues I had originally with gateway to is this idea of you still agreeing the principles with the regulator whilst you were also showing them where the nuts and bolts and shims are or quite frankly I don't know whether I've got two lifts or two stairs I don't care whether what your shim or bolt is made up because that doesn't that's not important at this stage yeah and I think the staged application takes that on board which means you can lock in your principles you've got certainty that no one's going to come back to you go right I need an extra three lifts and stairs and you grow to net me going to lose an apartment and the scheme becomes all unviable you lock that in and then by all means follow up over the course of those three years with your staged applications with more of the detail always being one step ahead of where you are on site so there's none of this kind of designing it as you're building it but at least you're able to get things started and the interesting thing with construction is once you get on site and get started you build up momentum and then the rest just kind of tends to naturally follow on yeah taking away the risk so I like what Dave said because I think that's how it should work that's that's what you've just said makes schemes viable because you know you're locking in you've got gateway to hopefully that gives the funder reassurance I read through that CLC guidance that one before Christmas and I must say reading that it seemed quite limited it seemed like what it read as though you could do your sort of stage application for your for your for your substructure great the rest of it as you mentioned that those design principles you submit those design principles but what's not in that guidance and what Dave you've just mentioned is it will lock in those design principles like the two lifts the two staircases as opposed to three or the regulations that were applicable at the time of submitting your submission you read through those that CLC guidance that's that's not necessarily in that guidance now so is that because you've had a conversation with the regulator or someone's giving you additional feedback on that I think that's more well one without all of this until it's actually tested it's still personal views on it but we have had a pre-out with the BSR and talked it through it does make sense that actually you know if you're doing the foundation you're digging two lift pits for it then ultimately you're going to have to stick to a strategy that has to to to lift pits and talking to other architects and other people in industry that is how we are currently fruiting it now there may always be some legislation emergency or whatever that comes in that trumps all of that so there might still be something that changes that means you've got to change the design and that and look standards and things are changing so quickly at the moment the fire eggs and one of the British standards that we all design our residential buildings that has already changed three times in the course of 18 months with Corridendums and Corrections and all that kind of stuff you're literally chasing your tail you're designing as fast as the legislation changes but I do think and we are certainly going to push it and we're going to test it probably in the next few months that that is how we see working and we want to test it too I think what we need to see from the regulator is thank you again for that flexibility because that's what we need but it's it's something in writing from them to say you know acknowledged you've sent us your principles this has agreed because again that risk element of why if they change their mind later down the line were they you know are they sort of are they locked in to to say you know we agree to those principles it's just making sure that there's a guidance not that's out there but without having this conversation now and your conversation that you've had with your lead we wouldn't know and there's a lot of developers out there maybe smaller developers that maybe don't have that interaction or maybe it's their first submission that that guidance needs to be clear for all of the industry yeah yeah I get it I get it and I think if you take say if we just discuss kind of new developments and come out of Miller right this is I'm going to build high rise high rise developments from a new point of view what if we look at get right to when it comes to remediation but there's a whole other kind of fish there I didn't appreciate if you wanted to do remediation works on a high rise development you could have opened up a gateway to application subject to the level at which that remediation is there is a emergency legislation that's safe for example those are breaking and you smashed open a fire door that fire door can be replaced and certain things but it does mean that certain elements of remediation are taking longer than they should yeah that that seems like it's it's done like surely at that point there when you've got a high rise development that's safe and secure if you're looking at changing what would be changing all the fire doors yeah it just says like a maintenance program because buildings have maintenance programs right like every two years every three years whatever that is changing that if you look at sort of the process and the legislation you need to apply if it's if it's a HRB for a gateway to for a gateway three just on a maintenance right there. Just on a maintenance take even like an empty shell on a on the ground floor of a HRB to do say like a fit out of a of a store like an as draw a test goal that if it's in within a HRB and it's class as a HRB you have to go through the gateway to and gateway three I mean they believe they are looking at it as to how they can improve it but but then that also results in actually we're aware of developers who've kind of gone I take the top floor off this building I'm no longer a HRB and that's ridiculous hang on what do I know what is that mean take the top floor of the building so because the cutoff point at the moment is 18 meters yeah and I should say the latest Grimmfield reports talk about whether 18 meters is a suitable cutoff for what makes a HRB or whether it should be more nuanced in terms of say the occupants of the building or the complexity of the building etc etc so we might get into a world where even the 18 meters becomes subjective but actually if you're 18.4 meters you are falling into a HRB right if you're not if you're under that 18 meters you're no longer under the HRB so if you're going well actually my viability means that I need to get on site this quickly I need to do this I need to do this I need to do this the HRB element is say adding a substantial amount of money to the scheme but my return from that top floor is only minusculely higher than what that is then I can massively erase the project by just taking the top floor off and dropping it down to a standard building we've had that we've had that with the developer with a taken floor off and that's crazy because when viability is so tight and you know you're trying to maximize and build homes for people well that's the thing you're trying to build there's a whole legislations and mandates to build more homes and then this is kind of from back to it unintended consequences yeah it's it's you're right you left hand is saying build build build you're right hand is saying these restrictions now there should always be restrictions which shouldn't just build anything but it's getting that balance between safety well built buildings and you need to provide significant amounts of housing over the next five years and I get and absolutely what I can't seem to get my head around is this idea from say the example that you gave just about say if you got a you're looking at opening a blaster and doing a fit out time and a start this whole process on something that has been done for it's a fit out of a shop on the ground floor it's remediation works on maintenance program yeah the cost that must be then incurred by the property property manager the people managing the property passed on to then the people living at the property it gets passed on doesn't it to the residents who suffers at the end of that it's the residents it's the people that need the homes it's not building enough and yeah you just don't have enough homes but it's coming back to sort of the azure example or the maintenance example it's about proportionality yes it it really is it's understanding what is proportionate to that element of work how can we be treating you know a fit out or a replacement or a maintenance replacement piece to the same extent as a full on HRB new build it's okay it just not it doesn't make some does an add up and regime in place that's that's what I think would support that because you're not only putting a blocker on new homes you're putting a blocker on existing assets yeah yeah it's that's it I completely agree with you well the funders that you've been working with say I'm imagine you've got clients that you've been working with for years that they themselves when this was introduced 18 months ago this is brand new to them as well how are they feeling what's there outlook when it comes to looking forward and being like right I've got to put forward a gateway to submission to get this off the ground I think to start with it was perceived as such a high risk as in standback yeah let's just let's just pause for a moment and let's just see what happens and then let's step in that was definitely the experiences that mark you know we faced but if that's the majority way of thinking then all of a sudden all these developments just stop it has a massive impact it really does but as things have improved we've seen we've seen more sort of improvements so some developers wanting to see a full sort of gateway to approval before they put their funding into the scheme others now that the process is starting to become a lot lot more clearer and you know you can start to program this in you're getting a bit more funding up front to support that gateway to submission pack so there is that but because of the involvement with specialist suppliers subcontractors and the main contractor involvement it does mean that that sort of v expenditure which probably would have been like re-be stage 3 now you're bringing in your re-be stage 4 you're bringing in that full technical design you're bringing in the specialist that expenditure has gone like a lot it's just increased so much from where it was traditionally yeah yeah and that has to be cash flowed and it's how you cash flow that in and whether funders have got that appetite to support what I would say is we absolutely do need that funder support to support us with these submissions but I think now as the process is starting to get a lot clearer I hope that that gives funders and institutes more certainty. You've got to completely change their way of thinking and how they've been approaching development for the past. Oh definitely but I think as more time passes as consultants and contractors we can start to say well we've got these gateway to approvals we know what we need to do here you're then walking into a meeting going this is not how I think it should be done as this is how it is done yeah I'd certainly say over the last six, four to six months that people have started coming back to the table and going right I can see it settling down because ultimately investment funds, pension funds they just wants stability and they want reassurance that whatever they put in is going to come out the other side with whatever profit they want to I think they're seeing certainty on there so they're certainly willing to get schemes going further there's still nervousness about other processes within the the whole gateway process but at least we're seeing less of kind of shutters down we're going to a different country point of view. Hey that's good that's a good positive news from there we're taking the first take and there's a more open approach to taking it forward I mean from what would what are the positives that you would say you've come away with over the past 10 months how that what's changed in the past 18 months that way of working that's actually been something that you've been you quite is better for you better for the industry. I have certainly never had a point in my career where certainly as a profession within architecture we've spoken to each other so much I mean we obviously had forums through rebur and things like that but the ATLG has been kind of set up for the architectural technical leads group it's an amazing organization where it's got 200 plus practices we have a week monthly kind of teams call where we're all talking about all the issues that we've had you know I can probably go and talk to most architectural practices in Birmingham and have a conversation but rather than in looking at it as a competitive advantage we're just wanting to share knowledge that's good we know how hard it is to do it so if I've been through that pain and I can take some of that pain away from you by just explaining to do this xyz I'll do that because ultimately the more that we can get through these hurdles the better the construction industry comes the better Birmingham becomes with more buildings moving forward more quickly and actually we're now starting to see that with with other sectors other consultants you know some fire engineers have been absolutely brilliant in terms of working alongside us explaining stuff explaining why they approach things in the way they approach things that might not have always been obvious and I think the more we all understand what each individual has to do within their own discipline be that the consultant client contract there or whatever the more we understand the more we have a chance of getting everyone to move in the right direction because we all understanding understand the pain and the difficulties that we're all going through and I think that openness and that willingness to engage and have these open conversations is something they could be seen as a real positive I like that that's a good takeaway to bring the industry the architecture community closer together to support one another and see each other see the problems through what have you self-couple what's your what have you come away with thinking this I think for me it's been that sort of full design coordination piece not only with the design consultants but with the specialist subcontractors I would never have really in the past had that much involvement in understanding the level of design and that goes into yeah building the building it's just made me more technical and appreciate what's required from each and how it all comes together you know you see usually under that sort of design and build model you know yeah we design it to a certain extent but then it kind of goes across to the contractor and then the contractor is leading with their design manager and their architect with all the supply chain but that's all been brought forward and it's just yeah it's just expanded my network as well with not just the designers but also the specialist like the smolk control the lifts the fire alarms and the sprinklers and just making sure like designers are talking to the subcontractors and everything is being coordinated and it's all coming together and you can and you can see it all coming together I think that fire strategy piece is stronger because we ask questions where we're more sort of inquisitive whereas maybe and you know for me maybe in the past it would have been like okay here's a fire strategy thanks and here's the design information but we are definitely a more collaborative and coordinated team so I'd say that is definitely a big positive that's correct to take away yeah nice big open communication between between all parties involved we're say Kully Dave thank you so much for coming on to the building from podcasts today it's been absolutely great to speak to you by the build safely act going way too I think we we haven't even touched one gateway three so maybe we'll come back for a part two part two to unpack that one and then no thank you so much for taking the time it's been great to speak to you both thank you thank you thank you very much I'd like to say a big thank you to our guests for joining me today on the building from podcast and thank you to everyone for listening we'll be back again very soon with more special guest speakers from all across the construction sector a big thank you to our building from podcast series supporters reality capture from point cloud modeling specialists scantec digital solace one of the UK's leading suppliers commercial floor of the wall tiles eight pqk limits said what's from it's based based on actual glazing specialists he had smith broken facade specialists and some belt renters with over 1.5 million items of equipment their largest providers of equipment however you can thanks so much for listening everyone take care