Liberal Democrat Lord Andrew Stunell has been in the hot seat with Inside Housing who have been busy reviewing information provided to them under their Freedom of Information request into previous submissions, to support their Never Again Campaign.
He was the junior minister in the Department for Communities and Local Government when it carried out a consultation on the system of building regulation in 2010 titled Future changes to Building Regulations – next steps.
Inside Housing reported that the ministry only released 14 of the 54 submissions to the review –”the remaining 40 had been “deleted”.
In what they have, they have requests for mandatory sprinklers on towers. Only tower blocks above 30 metres have to be fitted with sprinklers under building regulations.
In 1985, Margaret Thatcher’s government part-privatised building control to allow private players, Approved Inspectors, to compete with Local Authorities to sign buildings off as compliant. Contributions made in in the 2010 submissions, suggested that this should be reviewed.