Buildings below 18 metres

We've put together a summary video explaining our building safety programme for buildings below 18 metres.

If you're reading about building safety, you may come across the height threshold of 18 metres. This is what was considered as a 'high rise' building and was historically linked to the height that fire fighting equipment was able to reach from the ground.

Generally, 18 metres is about six stories.

Why is it important now in building safety?

If your building is above 18 metres tall (or sometimes 17.7m as there can be a 30cm tolerance) then you are eligible for government grant support through the ACM Remediation Fund, Building Safety Fund and/or Waking Watch Relief Fund.

If your building is under 18 metres, you are likely only eligible for government support through a loan scheme, rather than one of the above grants. Full details of the government's loan scheme have not been released yet.

Where else is 18 metres important?

This used to be the measurement for new builds to be installed with sprinklers, but this has since been lower to 11m.

What does this mean for you if you live in one of our blocks shorter than 18 metres?

As directed by government guidance, we have prioritised our buildings based on risk and this meant focussing on our buildings over 18 metres first. We have now completed our investigations of our tall buildings and so are able to move onto the next phase of our investigations - which means our buildings below 18 metres.

If you live in a block of flats which measures below 18 metres, you may have received some information from us telling you what phase of our building safety programme you are in and the general timeline of when we expect that phase to begin.

Check if your building received a letter

What else can we tell you at the moment?

At this stage, we've only carried out a 'desktop study' on your building. This is where we check the technical documents and drawings we have to see what type of construction type and materials your building has. Until we have carried out an intrusive investigation on-site at your building, we won't be able to share anything concerning:

What remediation work may be needed
How much it will cost
How long it will take.

This is because it is unhelpful to speculate as to what problems there might be until we have a confirmed position following the intrusive investigation.

We do recognise that you are in a difficult situation at the moment and you are not at fault. Please be assured Network Homes is doing everything we can to proceed with our building safety programme safely and efficiently, and are working hard to resolve this situation on our residents behalf.

Government announcement on EWS1 forms

On 21 July 2021, the government has said that EWS1 forms should not be requested for buildings below 18 metres. We will be looking into this further and seeing if/how this may affect our building safety programme. We will be writing to residents in our programme about this change from the government. You can read further about the government's policy on building safety and this announcement here.