Property adviser Place Base is urging the government to raise the height threshold for buildings to require second staircases from 18m to 50m, as it claims the policy halts the development of around 17,960 homes a year.
In its report ‘Milton Keynes Lost: How paradisiacal second-staircase regulation erased a city the size of Milton Keynes’, Place Base estimates that the number of homes developed in planned buildings over 18m will fall by 25% due to extra costs resulting from the second-staircase rule.
Over a five-year period, this will equate to the loss of around 90,000 homes that would otherwise have been built, equivalent to a city the size of Milton Keynes, according to the report.
The policy requiring all buildings above 18m to have a second staircase was introduced in 2023 under former housing secretary Michael Gove – a move that prompted widespread industry concern over the viability of residential schemes.
Following interviews with senior stakeholders from fire engineers, housing associations, homebuilders, fire safety advisers, architects and building consultants, Place Base said a ‘viability chasm’ had been created for buildings between 18m and 30m.
The report states that the policy imposes “high costs for at best minuscule safety benefits, while actively sabotaging housing delivery”.
It urges the government to use an ongoing review of the high-risk building definition to raise the building height threshold for mandatory second staircases. “This aligns with the government’s own data, which shows the material safety benefits are concentrated in buildings over 50m,” the report says.
“It would bring the UK into line with nations like France and Finland, maintain a safety-focused approach for genuinely high-rise structures and immediately restore the viability of thousands of urgently needed mid-rise urban homes.
“This change is essential to reconcile the rhetoric of ‘build, baby, build’ with the reality of delivering sustainable, safe and sufficient housing.”
The report notes that the height threshold for a second staircase being required is 50m in France, 52m in Finland and 60m in Germany, Ireland and Singapore.
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