MIMA respond to Sir David Amess MP
MIMA believes that the Future Homes Standard could provide a well-timed and high-profile means to deliver these vital changes to guarantee the delivery of resilient, quality and safe homes and ensure house buyers are given the robust assurances that they deserve.
Sarah Kostense-Winterton, Executive Director, MIMA comments, "Sir David Amess MP raises an extremely important aspect of fire safety - the need to change current construction practices, frameworks and requirements. Increasingly, concerns about the quality of some housing in general, with both fire safety after the Grenfell tragedy and global climate change, have focused minds on the urgency for such changes.
Within this context, the supply chain should be fully incentivised by Government to “track and trace” the actual products used throughout a build process and record the installation process in some detail, in line with the Hackitt Review findings. Full digital records about the products should be kept - including what type of insulation has been used and the Euroclass fire safety classification of the insulation. This should also include evidence that they match those specified in the design.
Encouragingly, a growing number of construction sector organisations are already actively seeking and finding solutions to these systemic issues and the Fire Protection Association recently called for a “code for resilient homes” which would, amongst other things, rate the ignitability of building materials and the potential for smoke toxicity at the design stage, and combine this with a mechanism to ensure no product substitution occurs during the build phase.
MIMA believes that the Future Homes Standard could provide a well-timed and high-profile means to deliver these vital changes to guarantee the delivery of resilient, quality and safe homes and ensure house buyers are given the robust assurances that they deserve.
