Faculty of law blogs / UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD

Useful Resources

  1. Closing the Gaps: Health and Safety at Home – full report

This is the full report by blogpost authors Professor Helen Carr and Ed Kirton-Darling, alongside Professor David Cowan and Edward Burtonshaw-Gunn.

The report was "commissioned by Shelter to examine the gaps in Law exposed by the fire at Grenfell Tower. They found that law relating to health and safety in people's homes is piecemeal, out-dated, complex , dependent upon tenure, and patchily enforced. It makes obscure distinctions, which have little relationship with everyday experiences of poor conditions. Tenants wanting to remedy defects face numerous and often insurmountable barriers to justice. The law needs to evolve; no longer should occupiers be treated as posing health and safety risks, instead they should be treated as consumers of housing with enforceable rights to ensure minimum standards are adhered to. The state needs to accept its role as the primary enforcer of those standards." (Blurb from, and more details found, here.)

  1. Fire Safety Order (2005)
  2. Andrew O'Hagan, 'The Tower', London Review of Books
  3. Dame Judith Hackitt (2018), 'Building a Safer Future—Independent Review of Building Regulations and Fire Safety: Final Report'
  4. National Fire Chiefs Council, 'Guidance to support a temporary change to a simultaneous evacuation strategy in purpose-built block of flats'
  5. HCLGC report - 'Independent review of building regulations and fire safety:next steps' (18/07/18), PDF version
  6. Manchester Green Quarter decision by the FTT (18/07/18), PDF version
  7. Ipswich Tribunal report (20/12/18), PDF scan