If you had to sign today that a building complies, which document would you reach for…
If you had to sign today that a building complies, which document would you reach for first?
Most people say the final drawings. I would ask for the change log.
Last month, more than 200 households in three towers at Royal Gateway, Canning Town, east London, were asked to leave in the early hours. The blocks were completed in 2017. The concern is the transfer slab beneath them: the slab that takes columns from the floors above and passes their load to columns on a different grid below. According to the managing agent, it came to light during building safety case work. Structural engineers raised concerns after reviewing the structural drawings, and a site inspection on 21 October confirmed them. The cause has not been published, and I am not speculating on it.
What strikes me is where the investigation started. Nine years after completion, the engineers went to the record first. The questions that follow are the ones every duty holder should be able to answer at handover: does the building match the drawings, what changed on site, why, and who checked each change.
According to the managing agent, it came to light during building safety case work.
Under the dual-duty-holder regime, the Principal Designer and the Principal Contractor each have to stand behind compliance at completion. Drawings show what was intended. They rarely show what changed on the way: a substituted product, a relocated opening, a detail revised in a site meeting. That record cannot be rebuilt years later.
For higher-risk buildings a change control log is already law: the principal contractor keeps it, and the Building Safety Regulator reviews the changes at completion. For other buildings nothing makes you keep one. It is still the cheapest protection a duty holder has.
Five columns are enough: what changed, why, which Regulation it touches, who checked it and when, which drawing was updated. Start it on day one on site.
