What is building safety?
Our priority is for residents to be safe and feel safe in their homes.
Our building safety team focuses mainly on our high-rise buildings. These are buildings of seven storeys or more, or taller than 18 metres.
The team was set up in response to the Building Safety Act 2022, which gives residents and homeowners more rights, powers, and protections – so homes are safer.
What this means for residents and homeowners
- residents in high-rise residential buildings will have more say in the management of their building
- residents will be able to raise building safety concerns directly to the owners and managers of the buildings. They will have a duty to listen to them
- if residents feel their concerns are being ignored, they can raise them with the Building Safety Regulator
- homeowners will have more than twice the amount of time to claim compensation for sub-standard construction work. This has been extended from 6 to 15 years
- this will apply retrospectively – meaning that properties built up to 15 years prior to this change coming into effect will be able to bring a claim for compensation for defective work
What this means for building owners
- owners of high-rise residential buildings will be required to manage safety risks during the design, construction, completion and occupation of the buildings
- each building must have a ‘golden thread’ of safety information across its entire lifetime, including during the earliest stage of the planning process
- building owners will need to demonstrate that they have effective, proportionate measures in place to manage safety risks
- those who don’t meet their obligations may face criminal charges
What our building safety team does
The actions below are all designed to make sure you are safe – and feel safe – in your homes. If you have any concerns or would like any further information, please feel free to get in touch.
- we do checks of all our high-rise residential buildings once a month. We check items such as fire doors, escape routes, emergency lighting and escape signage. If anything is out of place, we arrange for it to be fixed
- we are carrying out surveys to help us establish if buildings have any defects or safety risks
- we have created a Building Safety Strategy to help us achieve our legislative requirements under the Building Safety Act
- we held a joint training exercise with the London Fire Brigade to test our emergency arrangements
- we are talking to residents who want to train to be ‘Building Safety Champions’
- we are working on specific resident engagement plans for each building
- we are holding ‘Meet your Building Safety Manager’ sessions
Relevant persons
| Building Owner | London Borough of Lewisham (LBL) |
| Principal Accountable Person (Person Accountable for Building Safety legal requirements) | London Borough of Lewisham (LBL) |
| Single Point of Contact to Building Safety Regulator Contact details | Address: London Borough of Lewisham Laurence House 1 Catford Road London SE6 4FN Email: Jennifer Daothong Contact Telephone Number: 02083146800 |
| Building Safety Manager as an entity | London Borough of Lewisham (same address as above) |
| Each High Rise Building has its own dedicated named individual Building Safety Manager | Many |
| Responsible Person (RP) for Fire Safety Legislation under the Fire Safety Order | Jennifer Daothong (LBL CEO) |
| Fire Safety Competent Person for the organisation | Charles Brown (Fire Risk Manager) |
| Building Safety Regulator (HSE) (Enforcing Authority for all Building Safety Legislation) | Contact telephone number: 0300 790 6787 Building Safety Regulator |
How to contact your building safety manager
Please always email the team at Building Safety to ensure requests are properly logged and dealt with in a timely manner.