safety

There has never been more focus on safety and compliance in social housing.

New legislation, revised standards and rising expectations are changing how landlords think about risk, responsibility and assurance. Awaab’s Law, the revised Housing Health and Safety Rating System, the new Competence and Conduct Standard, access challenges, data quality and building safety reform are often discussed separately. In practice, they are part of the same bigger shift.

For housing associations, ensuring residents live in safe, well-maintained homes is a responsibility that sits at the heart of everything you do.

Managing ageing housing stock, meeting regulatory requirements and delivering improvement programmes all require careful planning, specialist knowledge and trusted partners who understand the challenges of working within occupied properties.

Your home should always be a place where you feel safe, comfortable and secure.

Behind the scenes, housing associations work hard to maintain properties, carry out improvements and ensure homes remain safe for residents and their families.

One area that often goes unnoticed is environmental safety.

This includes managing materials and substances that may be present in older buildings and ensuring that any maintenance or refurbishment work is carried out safely and professionally.

That is where specialist companies such as Envirocall play an important role.

Housing safety and compliance professionals enter the second half of 2026 facing one of the most demanding periods the sector has seen. New legal duties, rising regulatory scrutiny, increasing expectations around competence and conduct, and persistent operational challenges are converging at the same time.

For the people responsible for keeping homes safe, this is not a year to watch from the sidelines. It is a year to be prepared, connected and ahead of what is coming.

John Street, Newham, a high‑rise residential development comprising Blocks A and C, has been equipped with a comprehensive life safety solution from Advanced, incorporating SmokeGo smoke control and EvacGo evacuation alert systems to support a stay‑put fire strategy and enhance resident safety.

Daniel Cheddie, founder and owner of Stronghold® Anchor, discusses removing the cost of scaffolding from high-rise maintenance and safety works.

Across the social housing sector, one challenge is becoming increasingly familiar. How do local authorities and housing associations deliver urgent safety-critical works in high-rise buildings when budgets are shrinking, access is difficult and residents rightly expect minimal disruption?

Local authorities and housing associations across the UK face mounting pressure to deliver safe, compliant refurbishment and new build programmes, often within severely constrained budgets and challenging timescales.

Nowhere is this more evident than in high-rise projects, where replacing windows at height has traditionally meant extensive scaffolding, increased risk and significant disruption to residents.