On Monday 24 July 2023, Housing Secretary Michael Gove confirmed the Government's intention to mandate second staircases in residential high-rise buildings across the UK over 18 metres in height. This could have a huge impact on developers, resulting in many section 73 (TCPA 1990) applications being made to redesign blocks to accommodate a second stair core.
The Government has been consulting on the proposed requirement to mandate a second staircase in all residential buildings over 30 metres in height since December 2022, but Gove's announcement indicates that the Government intends the threshold to be even lower than originally thought. City-based developers, who have already been hit by Sadiq Khan's mandate in February 2023 of a second staircase for new residential buildings in London over 30 metres, will be particularly affected.
The announcement has been welcomed by the Royal Institute of British Architects and the National Fire Chiefs Council. However, for developers across the UK it is likely to raise concerns about how the proposed new rules will affect the viability of their residential schemes and what support local planning authorities will provide to help replace the space lost by a second staircase.
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