Hosted by Gareth Wax in the chair and joined by Hamish McLay, Cladding Matters returns at 1pm with another honest look at the realities facing residents and the wider building safety world. We will also be joined, as usual, by Stephen Day, whose lived experience at Royal Artillery Quays continues to highlight what these national decisions mean for people living through remediation every day.

Every few months a new name steps into a senior role in the building safety world. This month it is Andy Roe, former chief executive of the London Fire Brigade and now chair of the Building Safety Regulator. His fire background is clear. His record at the LFB is well known. Yet it raises a reasonable question that many quietly ask. Does a fire expert genuinely have the breadth needed to make judgments about building regulations, construction standards and the long trail of unresolved issues that reach far beyond fire risk?

Building safety is not a single discipline. It is a complicated web of failures involving developers, contractors, product suppliers, warranty providers, building control teams and regulators who for years missed or ignored serious defects. Fire is only one part of that picture. Important, yes, yet far from the whole story.

The concerns run deeper when considering how the role was created. The Grenfell Inquiry recommended that the new regulator should be fully independent. The government later changed that direction and placed responsibility within the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government. It then fell to MHCLG officials to nominate the chair, with Andy Roe ultimately selected. The independence originally proposed disappeared, and the breadth of expertise that an open, external appointment might have delivered was never tested.

The issues emerging today are not only about cladding or compartmentation. Internal walls in many modern blocks have been found to be hollow, loosely fixed or missing required fire-stopping because inspections were rushed or never done. Thousands of leaseholders are discovering that their homes were signed off by inspectors who lacked the time, the competence or the willingness to challenge poor workmanship. These shortcomings sit in the world of construction oversight rather than firefighting.

This is where the concern lies. The chair of the Building Safety Regulator is expected to lead decisions that influence not only fire safety, but the entire structural and regulatory health of the built environment. That includes material quality, engineering standards, building control processes and the slow drift of regulation that allowed poor practice to become normal. These areas demand a skill set rooted in construction understanding, technical detail and a grasp of how inspection standards have deteriorated over time.

A background in fire safety is not a weakness. Fire professionals bring discipline and clarity to risk. Yet one wonders whether the job requires a broader foundation in how buildings are put together and why so many processes failed long before the fire service ever became involved. To oversee building safety means understanding the realities of procurement pressures, cost-cutting and the shortcuts that shaped much of the housing stock now being remediated.

This appointment also reflects a wider national habit. We often choose leaders who excel in one field and expect them to manage entire regulatory systems in another. Today’s building safety landscape is too complex for that. People want reassurance that senior decision-makers understand not just the consequences of failure, but also the roots of that failure within the construction process itself.

The question is not whether Andy Roe is capable. It is whether the structure and scope of the role demand wider construction and regulatory expertise than any fire career naturally provides. Building safety needs independence, depth and broad technical understanding. Fire knowledge alone cannot carry the entire load.

Watch live or catch up:
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@SpillingTheProper-Tea
PS:
For content enquiries: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
For podcast or media info: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.