High rise domestic buildings: inventory

Information on the construction and fire safety of high rise domestic buildings in Scotland.

This document is part of a collection


Footnotes

1. These completion rates exclude buildings for which the question does not apply, but include buildings which may need responses should earlier missing questions be completed. For example, if the building's construction type is not identified, then the mains gas question, which relates only to Large Panel System buildings, may need a response, and is therefore included as a missing response. The completion rates may therefore be viewed as a "worst-case" scenario.

2. Percentages in this section, unless otherwise stated, are a proportion of completed answers and not the full inventory dataset.

3. Scottish Advice Note: Determining the fire risk posed by external wall systems in existing multi-storey residential buildings, 2021: Scottish Advice Note: Determining the fire risk posed by external wall systems in existing multi-storey residential buildings - gov.scot (www.gov.scot)

4. Private ownership covers those buildings not owned by LAs or RSLs. These may include buildings with flats solely in owner occupation, or of mixed tenure with socially rented tenants (LA and RSL), privately rented tenants and owner occupiers.

5. Large panel system building (LPS), involves casting large concrete prefabricated sections off-site and bolting them together to construct the building.

6. LPS is the type of construction used in Ronan Point, a dwelling block in London which, following an internal gas explosion in 1968, suffered significant collapse of a section of the building. Since then these types of buildings should have been structurally strengthened to avoid any further incidents, but investigations in England post Grenfell have shown that this work has not always taken place. As a result the Department of Communities and Government wrote to all Local Authorities and Housing Associations in the UK to highlight this and outline actions they may want to consider.

7. External wall insulation (EWI) is the application of thermal insulation to the external walls of buildings - generally referring to the application of thermal insulation material and a finish system to the outside face of the external walls of an existing building to improve its thermal performance.

8. HPL figures have been cross referenced with the HPL publication (https://www.gov.scot/publications/high-pressure-laminate-cladding-data-collection-summary-report/) to ensure they reflect the most up to date information available.

9. The most common form of automatic fire suppression in residential buildings is water sprinkler systems to BS 9251 however some systems may include water mist systems to BS 8458. Partial AFSS is common in communal bin stores. The Scottish Government intend to legislate for automatic fire suppression systems in all new build social housing, new build flats and certain new build houses in multiple occupation by April 2021.

10. Completion rates exclude records where an answer is not required due to a previous response, but include those cases which are unknown if missing, due to a non-response to a previous question.

11. HPL figures have been cross referenced with the HPL publication to ensure they reflect the most up to date information available (https://www.gov.scot/publications/high-pressure-laminate-cladding-data-collection-summary-report/).

Contact

Email: simon.roberts@gov.scot

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