CC4201

CASEstudy
Leveraging AssetWise
Clarion Housing have devised their own Asset Management solution, based on Bentley's AssetWise
ALIM, to comply with the government's Building Safety Act
It was a natural outcome following
the horrors of Grenfell in 2017 that
the UK government should introduce
new legislation covering safety issues
in high-rise buildings. The Building
Safety Act 2022 is a huge change in
the government's regulatory framework.
It's aim is not only to change the way
the construction industry handles
safety issues within the design,
construction and operation of high-rise
buildings, but also to give occupants a
greater say in how their building is kept
safe, and to raise safety concerns
directly with owners and managers of
such buildings.
It gives leaseholders substantially
more clout when it comes to sorting
out building safety defects, and the
tools that will enable allow those
responsible for tragedies and financial
burdens arising from other building
safety defects to be held to account.
The new regulations are designed to
overhaul the existing ones, and to
make clear how residential buildings
should be constructed, maintained and
made safe. To implement the Building
Safety Act, three new oversight bodies
have been set up: the Building Safety
Regulator, the National Regulator of
Construction Products and the New
Homes Ombudsman.
Responsible for the
implementation of the Building
Safety Act are the designer,
the contractor or the owner,
who will be
required to manage building safety
risks during the design, construction
and occupation of all buildings and can
demonstrate that they have
proportionate measures in place to
manage building safety risks.
If they don't meet their obligations
they may face criminal charges, and at
the very least, they will need to
contribute to the costs of fixing their
own buildings.
CLARION HOUSING GROUP
Conforming to the new requirements is
another matter entirely, requiring
developers and owners of such
properties to compile details of which
parts of a building are considered to be
a fire or structural risk, and which are
covered by the new regulations, and to
maintain records of their performance,
regular inspections and any other
information about the steps taken to
mitigate those risks.
Hence Clarion
Housing initiating a project to digitise
information for all components of
higher-risk buildings that impact fire
and structural safety and enable it to
comply with the Building Safety Act.
The initiative, they say, will increase
the safety of all of Clarion's higher-risk
buildings through enhanced asset
management, and improve and
demonstrate the safety of Clarion's
stock.
Clarion Housing have a portfolio of
higher-risk buildings in London and
across England, all residential
buildings of seven storeys and above.
The project presented significant
information challenges when gathering
and coordinating data that was at
times siloed, unstructured, missing,
and inaccurate.
Catering for a portfolio of buildings
constructed over some years and
including modern and future buildings
designed to BIM specifications, the
complexity of information gathering can
often outweighs it value. Clarion,
however, wanted to develop a fully
operational
Point cloud scan of a high-rise building
20
January/February 2024