Introduction

If you have found yourself asking, What is the Building Safety Act 2022, you are not alone. Since the legislation received Royal Assent on 28 April 2022, it has reshaped how residential buildings are designed, constructed, and managed across England. Yet despite its scale, many people still struggle to understand what it actually means in practice.

At its core, the Building Safety Act 2022 is a response to the Grenfell Tower fire. It introduces a new regulatory regime focused on accountability, competence, and transparency in the design, construction and management of buildings, particularly higher-risk buildings. But beyond the headlines about cladding and high-rise buildings, the Act quietly rewires how information flows, how responsibility is assigned, and how building safety risks must be evidenced.

This article will explain what the Building Safety Act is, who it applies to, how it affects residential buildings, and what you should be doing now if you are a resident, building owner, designer, principal contractor, or accountable person. Along the way, we will explore a critical concept often overlooked in surface-level summaries: the golden thread.

1. Why the Building Safety Act 2022 Exists

The Building Safety Act did not emerge in a vacuum. It is a direct response to the Grenfell Tower fire in June 2017, where 72 people lost their lives. That tragedy exposed systemic failures in construction products regulation, building control oversight, and the fragmentation of responsibility across the industry.

Following Dame Judith Hackitt’s independent review, the government proposed sweeping reforms. The Building Safety Bill eventually received Royal Assent on 28 April 2022, becoming the Safety Act 2022 in force today.

What changed?

Rather than relying on guidance and reactive enforcement, the Act creates an active regulatory regime that seeks to:

• Clarify who is responsible at each stage of a building’s lifecycle
• Strengthen oversight of high-rise buildings
• Improve competence requirements for building control professionals
• Increase enforcement powers and sanctions
• Protect qualifying leaseholders from remediation costs

It also established the Building Safety Regulator within the Health and Safety Executive. This body is tasked with overseeing the safety and performance of all buildings, with a special focus on higher-risk buildings. The developers of the Building Safety Regulator framework have been explicit in their ambition: they want to drive cultural change, not just procedural compliance.

Here is where a subtle but important shift occurs. Previous legislation often focused on physical outcomes. The Building Safety Act focuses equally on systems, documentation, and traceability. In other words, you are no longer judged solely on what you build, but on how you prove it is safe.

2. Does the Act Apply to Your Building?

One of the first questions people ask is whether the Building Safety Act applies to all residential buildings.

Technically, the Act touches all building work subject to Building Regulations. However, the most stringent requirements apply to higher-risk buildings.

A higher-risk building is generally defined as a building that:

• Is at least 18 metres in height or at least 7 storeys
• Contains at least 2 residential units

These thresholds primarily capture high-rise buildings such as apartment blocks, student accommodation, and certain care facilities.

There are around 12,000 to 13,000 such buildings in England. That figure alone illustrates the scale of the new regime.

For these buildings, the Act introduces:

• Mandatory registration with the Building Safety Regulator
• New duties for accountable persons and principal accountable persons
• A safety case report requirement
• A formal gateway process during design and construction

It is worth noting that confusion still surrounds how storeys are measured and what qualifies as residential. Mixed-use buildings can fall into grey areas. If you own or manage property near the threshold, it is prudent to seek clarity early rather than assume you are out of scope.

Even if your building is not classified as higher risk, competence requirements still apply. Designers, contractors, and building control professionals must now demonstrate that they are capable of delivering compliant work.

3. What Changes for Residents, Leaseholders, and Building Owners?

For residents, the Act promises empowerment. In theory, it places them at the centre of building safety decision-making.

For building owners and accountable persons, it introduces legal duties that cannot be delegated away.

Accountable Persons and Principal Accountable Persons

In higher-risk buildings, accountable persons are those responsible for the common parts of the building. The principal accountable person usually holds primary responsibility for the structure and exterior.

These individuals or organisations must:

• Assess building safety risks relating to fire and structural failure
• Prepare and maintain a safety case report
• Establish a resident engagement strategy
• Operate a complaints procedure
• Maintain a mandatory occurrence reporting system

Failure to comply can result in criminal sanctions.

What is often misunderstood is that the Act does not require perfection. It requires evidence of control. Regulators want to see that risks are identified, mitigated, and continuously reviewed.

Leaseholder Protections

Another major reform addresses remediation costs. Qualifying leaseholders in many mid-rise and high-rise buildings are protected from bearing the full cost of fixing historical cladding defects.

The extension of limitation periods under related legislation also gives homeowners more time to pursue claims for defective work. In some cases, that window now stretches to 15 or even 30 years.

Yet there is nuance here. Protections are conditional. Not all leaseholders qualify, and building owners still face complex funding and liability structures. The narrative that the Act has “solved” the cladding crisis is overly simplistic. It has shifted the financial burden, but disputes continue.

4. What Changes for Designers, Contractors, and Building Control?

For those involved in the design, construction and management of buildings, the Act represents the most significant regulatory shift in decades.

Dutyholder Roles

The client, designer and principal contractor now have clearly defined statutory duties under the Building Regulations framework.

The designer and principal contractor must plan, manage, and monitor work to ensure compliance. They must also demonstrate competence.

This is not a box-ticking exercise. The Act has made it clear that building control professionals and any registered building control approver must operate within a strengthened oversight structure. Poor practice can result in enforcement action by the Building Safety Regulator.

The Gateway Process

Higher-risk buildings must pass through three formal gateways:

1. Planning stage fire safety considerations
2. Pre-construction building control approval
3. Completion and certification before occupation

Construction cannot begin until Gateway 2 approval is granted. Occupation cannot occur without Gateway 3 sign-off.

While this enhances scrutiny, some in the industry argue that delays and resourcing pressures within the regulator have created bottlenecks. The intention is robust oversight. The practical experience, at least in the early years, has been slower processing times.

This tension between ambition and capacity is rarely discussed openly, yet it is central to how the regime evolves.

5. The Golden Thread and the New Compliance Reality

If there is one concept that defines the Building Safety Act, it is the golden thread.

The golden thread refers to a secure, accurate, and accessible digital record of key building information throughout the building’s lifecycle. It must be created during design, maintained during construction, and handed over in a usable form for occupation.

In practice, this means:

• Design decisions must be traceable
• Changes must be recorded and justified
• Safety-critical information must be accessible to accountable persons
• Evidence must be structured, not scattered

This is where many organisations struggle. Compliance data often lives across spreadsheets, email chains, PDFs, and legacy systems. When the Building Safety Regulator requests evidence, retrieving coherent information becomes a project in itself.

Here is a perspective not often stated plainly: the golden thread is less about technology and more about governance. A digital platform alone will not make a building safe. However, without structured information management, even well-designed buildings can fail regulatory scrutiny.

That is why using a purpose-built golden thread app can significantly reduce risk. Our client’s golden thread app is designed specifically to help building owners and accountable persons organise compliance data in line with the Building Safety Act. It centralises documentation, tracks changes, and supports ongoing evidence management.

Rather than scrambling to assemble information when challenged, you operate from a position of readiness.

In a regulatory regime that prioritises demonstrable control, that shift is powerful.

6. Construction Products, Enforcement, and Cultural Change

Another critical pillar of the Act addresses construction products.

Historically, gaps in oversight allowed unsafe or misrepresented products to enter the market. The new framework strengthens enforcement and creates clearer accountability for manufacturers and suppliers.

The Building Safety Regulator can investigate, enforce, and, where necessary, prosecute. Developers of the Building Safety Regulator model have made it clear that sanctions are intended to deter complacency.

Still, legislation alone does not transform culture. The response to the Grenfell Tower tragedy required more than statutory change. It demands a mindset shift across design teams, contractors, building control approvers, and building owners.

Accountability is no longer diffuse. It is named, documented, and reviewable.

Conclusion

So, what is the Building Safety Act 2022?

It is a comprehensive reform of how residential buildings, particularly higher-risk buildings, are designed, constructed, and managed. It received Royal Assent on 28 April 2022 as a direct response to the Grenfell Tower fire. It introduces a powerful regulatory regime, defines new duties for accountable persons, strengthens oversight of building control professionals, tightens rules around construction products, and embeds the golden thread at the heart of compliance.

More importantly, it changes expectations. Evidence matters. Transparency matters. Information management matters.

If you are a building owner, designer, principal contractor, or accountable person, now is the time to review how you manage building safety risks and how you structure your golden thread. A dedicated golden thread app can help you move from reactive compliance to proactive control.

Regulation will continue to evolve. The question is whether your systems are ready.