The Building Safety Act: A Political Smoke Screen That Punishes the Wrong People
For decades, hardworking construction and fabrication business owners across England have poured their lives into building safe, compliant structures. These are not faceless corporations. They are families, tradesmen, engineers, and entrepreneurs who played by the rules of the time, reinvested profits into quality systems, and did the job the government and developers asked of them.
Now, in the wake of the Grenfell tragedy, many of those same businesses find themselves scapegoated, financially ruined, or paralysed by fear of retrospective liability. The Building Safety Act may have been passed in the name of safety, but let’s be honest: it was also a political act of blame transfer. It has done little to address the true systemic failures that allowed Grenfell to happen. Instead, it has created a convenient villain in the form of "non-compliant materials" and their suppliers.
Let’s set the record straight.
Grenfell was not solely a cladding failure. It was a failure of containment, a failure of response, and a failure of leadership. A single fire in one flat was allowed to escalate into a mass-casualty event. There were no sprinklers. No building-wide fire alarm system to alert neighbours. No organised evacuation. And above all, no adaptable firefighting strategy once the fire breached the external cladding and began spreading vertically.
In the Royal Navy, we design warships to survive catastrophic events. A naval vessel is effectively a high-rise, high-risk structure at sea: it contains fuel, explosives, electronics, and hundreds of people living and working in close quarters. Fires and floods are a constant threat.
So what do we do? We compartmentalise. We seal off and isolate damage. Every single sailor is trained in firefighting. Daily drills are routine. Every quarter, we simulate whole-ship emergencies. We don’t rely on hope. We prepare for failure and train to overcome it.
By contrast, what has changed in the leadership or daily readiness of our fire services since Grenfell? How often do tower block evacuations get drilled? Are stay-put policies still quietly in place? Have senior fire service leaders been held to account? Or did media pressure and union protection ensure that all fingers pointed elsewhere?
The Building Safety Act has not fixed those root causes. It has instead layered more red tape, cost, and liability on businesses that in many cases did what they were told. They used industry-standard products, signed off by building control and architects, and installed by approved methods. Now they face thirty-year look-back clauses, insurance exclusions, and the very real risk of being sued into oblivion for decisions made in good faith under past regulations.
The irony? Bankrupting the suppliers and contractors who best understand how to fix the problem does nothing to make buildings safer. It removes expertise, increases costs, and slows down remediation.
If safety is the goal, we need:
Fire containment at the modular level: real compartmentalisation and smoke/fire break strategies in buildings.
Functional, tested evacuation plans for residents.
Mandatory sprinkler systems in all multi-storey dwellings.
A fire service trained and drilled to the standard of high-risk environments like the Navy.
Accountability across all parties, including regulators, councils, and emergency services.
Instead, the construction industry has been left to carry the can.
To the business owners now navigating this hostile landscape: know that you are not alone. You built your businesses under the rules of the time. You provided livelihoods, paid taxes, and helped shape the skylines of this country. You deserve better than to be treated like criminals for regulatory failures you didn’t create.
It’s time for the government to stop blaming those who built the buildings and start fixing the systems that failed to protect them.
If you’re a fabricator, subcontractor, or construction supplier struggling to adapt to the new regulations – I’m here to support you.
Whether it’s digitising your documentation, improving traceability, or positioning your business as a leader in the retrofit and remediation market, I work directly with businesses like yours to help protect margins, reduce legal exposure, and stay competitive.
📩 Get in touch if you’d like a conversation about what’s possible.
