ALL new residential and “high-risk” buildings above 11m in Scotland will be banned from using combustible materials, in tough new measures to be announced by the Scottish Government.
The change to building regulations will mean rules here are far tougher than those brought in south of the border, where the combustible cladding ban only applies to residential buildings over 18m.
A spokesperson for the Scottish Government told the Architects’ Journal: “We will shortly introduce new legislation to ban combustible materials on all residential and other high-risk buildings above 11m.
“Since 2005, new cladding systems on high-rise blocks of flats have either had to use non-combustible materials or pass a large-scale fire test.
“After the Grenfell fire, we further tightened controls over combustible cladding and introduced additional fire safety measures, based on the recommendations of the Ministerial Working Group on Building and Fire Safety.”
The rules will apply to new builds and the recladding of existing ones.
It will cover homes, hospitals, schools, sheltered accommodation and hotels.
The law change effectively ends the use of high-pressure laminates (HPL) and aluminium composite materials (ACM), blamed for the quick spread of the Grenfell Tower fire that killed 72 people in June 2017.
The ban was supported by the Royal Incorporation of Architects in Scotland.
It was also welcomed by the Scottish Tenant’s Organisation. However, they called for ministers to go further and remove all existing combustible ACM and HPL known to be in residential tower blocks in Scotland.
Sean Clerkin from the group said: “It is very encouraging that the Scottish Government plan to ban all combustible cladding and insulation on all buildings above 11 metres in height including residential tower blocks in Scotland.
“This is a vindication of all those who have campaigned vigorously for this to happen since the terrible tragedy of Grenfell when so many people tragically lost their lives. Thankfully there should be no Scottish Grenfell.”
Last year, the Herald revealed that around one in seven blocks of flats in Scotland overseen by local authorities have the potentially combustible material as cladding.
At least 85 high rise blocks and over 130 other buildings, mainly schools overseen by Scotland's 32 local authorities contain HPL,
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