Golden Thread Fire Delay were appointed by Wates Construction as the passive fire protection designer and installer on their Canada Water AO1 flagship building, with responsibility for selecting and installing appropriate fire compliant products and systems for fire stopping, structural steel protection, and cavity barriers.
Since April 2022, on the back of the Grenfell enquiry and its findings, the Building Safety Act has come into force. Buildings over 18m in height specifically are affected by this act.
There are three gateways to go through in order to comply with the BSA:
Gateway 1
- Requires relevant planning applications to include a ‘fire statement’. Encourages early consultation between developers and HSE
Gateway 2
- Applications need to include competence declaration, fire and emergency file, statement detailing the arrangements to maintain a golden thread of information
Gateway 3
- Must be achieved before a building can be occupied
- Testing that the build is according to the agreed plans and understanding changes on the integrity of the design
- Providing the necessary information to be handed over to those taking responsibility for the building during occupation
The fire protection file requirement in Gateway 2 was highlighted as the main pitfall where most applications get rejected due to lack of detail.
The detailed design of passive fire protection has, historically, been left to stage 4 design which is usually too late.
In recognition of this complexity, Wates Construction appointed Golden Thread Fire Delay to ensure compliance and quality with the BSA and building regulations and test standards.