Fire safety in buildings in the United Kingdom requires attention

Gary Strong, Global Director of Building Standards, Professional Standards Directorate, RICS

Dubai, UAE, 13 December 2018: Every building is different and needs to be looked at individually, said Gary Strong, Global Director of Building Standards, Professional Standards Directorate, RICS, while speaking during an interview at the Safety Design in Buildings Conference, held on December 11, in Abu Dhabi. Elaborating on the attentiveness to fire safety in the United Kingdom, he said, “In the United Kingdom, fire sprinkler systems have been made mandatory only for buildings above 30 metres.”

Strong said there is a difference in the four nations in the United Kingdom in terms of the requirement for sprinklers. “In Wales for instance,” he said, “there was a lot of lobbying, just so that the legislation for fire sprinkler systems could be introduced for new projects.” Elaborating, he said, there are a lot of inconsistencies in the system, which is why there are issues around retrofitting existing buildings with fire sprinklers. He added, “We are hoping for an improvement in the situation and are doing what we can to improve the situation.”