Christophe Bind, Country Manager at passive fire protection specialist FSi Promat, looks ahead to 2024.

With the Building Safety Act coming into force, 2024 will be a time of change for the construction industry as a whole, with a close focus on fire safety including passive fire protection.

Long overdue changes to increase the safety of high-rise residential buildings are finally in place, but the impact of these on an operational level is yet to be fully seen and understood. Already raised as potentially being the end of design and build, the gateway scheme means that more detailed specification of products and applications will become increasingly important from an early stage as plans need to stipulate safety provisions.

For passive fire protection this is an ideal solution. Early specification ensures the right product is installed for the building, cavity barriers and fire stopping are delivered to the correct timeline, and that waste is minimised. It also allows any issues to be identified long before installation takes place.

However, a lack of clarity around central issues in the Act remains, such as the definition of notifiable changes, and at what point do changes to specification need to be notified. Having clarity on this as soon as possible is imperative for efficient project management and to ensure consistency in the application of passive fire protection.

Education and awareness

Competence continues to be a concern and we, as an industry, need to ensure that life critical products are manufactured, specified and installed to the highest standards. Along with a laser focus on fire safety we hope to see education and information prioritised across all sectors involved in the building process.

Within the industry the spotlight will absolutely be on skills, awareness and competence, and everyone involved in fire protection needs to take responsibility for theirs.  FSi Promat has already set up its own training facility to support accurate installation of its fire stopping and cavity barrier products – and we look forward to welcoming more partners across the coming year.

The golden thread will support this – and again this will see more industry change with a need for comprehensive information to be readily available throughout the full building lifecycle. This is one of the most important parts of the new legislation, ensuring the attention to detail that makes sure the right products are in place and have been installed correctly. To this end we expect to see more transparency and increased digitalisation to support ease of access to information.

With the implementation of the gateway scheme there is the possibility that we could see delays to some projects, but demand for fire stopping and cavity barriers is expected to remain high – both from a regulatory point of view and from raised awareness, but also the demand for recladding to make existing buildings safe.

While conditions have been challenging in the construction industry, there are signs of an improvement in 2024, which will, in turn, see an upturn for passive fire protection.

The coming year will be a time of change, these are changes that we need to see – and that are long overdue. Buildings should be made with safety in mind, and we at FSi Promat will do all we can to support that.

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