MID AND East Antrim Borough Council welcomed a consultation on building regulations for Northern Ireland, which could see combustible materials banned on external walls.
Newsletter reported on the council’s welcoming of the consultation, with it having sent a response to the consultation launched by the Department of Finance over amending the building regulations. The department stated that ‘following the Grenfell Tower tragedy and the lessons and findings coming out of the ongoing public inquiry’, it proposes ‘setting a minimum performance standard for materials which can be used or attached to the external walls of certain types of buildings.
‘The consultation seeks views on a range of issues including the types and heights of buildings to which the new standard should apply’. In response, the council’s borough growth committee added: ‘Since the Grenfell fire, there has been much debate about compliance with building regulations. The objective of this policy change is to provide certainty about materials to be used in external wall systems of certain buildings and legislation to introduce a requirement to ban the use of combustible materials on the external walls of relevant buildings, mainly of a residential type.’
It proposed a ban on certain materials used on external wall systems for buildings 18m high, with buildings above this height in the region including the Latharna House flats and Laharna Buildings block, though the council was ‘in favour’ of supporting setting a lower threshold of 11m, which ‘would prohibit the use of combustible building materials’ in buildings four storeys or higher.