Emergency Repairs in Higher-Risk Buildings: What the MHCLG Consultation Would Change

TL;DR: MHCLG opened a consultation on 9 July 2026 asking whether the emergency repairs route for higher-risk buildings is too narrow. It closes on 3 September 2026. Three options are on the table: keep the current provision, widen it from "repairs" to "works", or create a separate "critical works" route. None of this changes the law today, and regulation 10 of SI 2023/909 still says what it said before.

Check if your building qualifies as higher-risk →

#What Is Being Consulted On

The consultation is called Improving proportionality and building safety outcomes in building control: emergency repairs under the higher-risk building regime. The Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government published it on GOV.UK on 9 July 2026 with an eight-week window closing on 3 September 2026. It is limited to England and it is open to everyone, including members of the public.

MHCLG's stated problem is that the existing route is used less than it should be, because dutyholders are not confident their job fits inside it.

hesitancy among some dutyholders to use the route over concerns of enforcement action. This hesitancy can create additional unintended delays to safety critical works.

— MHCLG, emergency repairs consultation, 9 July 2026

That is the whole argument for change in one sentence. A building manager who is not certain a job is an "emergency repair" plays safe, waits for building control approval, and puts a temporary measure in place while waiting. Waking watch on a fire-stopping defect is the version of this that a managing agent recognises immediately, and it is expensive.

#Does This Affect Your Building?

Only if the building is a higher-risk building in occupation. That means at least 18 metres in height or at least 7 storeys, and at least two residential units, under section 65 of the Building Safety Act 2022 and the Higher-Risk Buildings (Descriptions and Supplementary Provisions) Regulations 2023. Our post on the higher-risk building definition works through the counting rules.

If your buildings are all below that threshold, this consultation does not reach you. Ordinary building control applies and none of the proposals touch it.

If you hold or advise on occupied higher-risk buildings, three roles are directly affected: the client commissioning the work, the responsible person under the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005, and the Principal Accountable Person who maintains the safety case report.

#The Route That Exists Today

This is the part worth being precise about, because the consultation only makes sense against it.

Work to an existing higher-risk building that consists only of emergency repairs may start before the Building Safety Regulator has granted building control approval. That is regulation 10 of the Building (Higher-Risk Buildings Procedures) (England) Regulations 2023, SI 2023/909. It defers the approval step. It does not remove it.

repairs to a building which are necessary to be carried out as a matter of urgency due to the risk to health, safety or welfare of persons in or about the building

— The Building (Higher-Risk Buildings Procedures) (England) Regulations 2023, reg. 10(2)

Three duties attach to using the route, all of them in regulation 10(1). The client must give notice to the Building Safety Regulator describing the work and the reasons for the urgency, as soon as reasonably practicable after the work has started. The client must send a copy of that notice to the responsible person on the same timing. The client must then submit a regularisation certificate application to the Building Safety Regulator as soon as reasonably practicable after the work is carried out, which is where the Regulator confirms the work met the Building Regulations.

The consultation document adds two consequences that run through the accountable-person side of the building rather than the client side. A copy of the emergency repair notice goes to the Principal Accountable Person so the safety case report can be updated. And where the repair was carried out to manage a risk of structural failure or the spread of fire, and it likely prevented death or serious injury to a significant number of people, the Principal Accountable Person must submit a mandatory occurrence notice to the Regulator.

#The Three Proposals

MHCLG sets out three options across 34 numbered questions.

Proposal 1: retain the existing provision. No change to regulation 10. Respondents who think the current wording is workable, or that widening it invites misuse, argue for this one.

Proposal 2: widen "repairs" to "works". In MHCLG's words, this would expand the provision to include emergency "works", including replacement and upgrades, "rather than being limited only to emergency 'repairs', to better reflect how urgent risks arise and are managed in practice". A failed smoke ventilation unit that has to be swapped rather than mended is the obvious test case. Fundamental changes to building elements and genuinely new elements would stay outside.

Proposal 3: a separate critical works route. This is presented as an alternative to proposal 2, not an addition to it. It would create a new route "for critical works, similar to the current emergency works route which would allow urgent, critical work that does not fall under the scope of the current emergency repairs provision to take place quickly". The examples given include planned work whose circumstances have escalated, essential replacement in hospitals where delay disrupts clinical services, work where funding or access opens for a short window, and urgent work affecting vulnerable or disabled residents.

The consultation also asks about major or large-scale works, about vulnerability and disability, about the public-interest cases such as hospitals, about guidance and the definition of building work, and about whether Competent Person Schemes could reduce the need for emergency notifications at all.

See the full Safety Case Report guide →

#What Would Change, and What Would Not

The oversight structure would survive either proposal. MHCLG says so directly, and the sentence is the one to quote back at anyone who reads this as deregulation:

"These proposed changes are not a compromise on safety". The functional requirements set out under the Building Regulations 2010 "will not change, nor will the majority of the procedural requirements of the HRB regime or dutyholder requirements."

— MHCLG, emergency repairs consultation, 9 July 2026

On the critical works route specifically, the document says it "would still retain retrospective BSR oversight of the work, using the same process through which the emergency repairs provision is currently implemented". The Regulator would also "continue to monitor, action and enforce on instances of misuse of the route".

So the practical consequence of either proposal 2 or proposal 3, if adopted, is volume. More jobs would qualify for a start-then-notify route, and every one of those jobs generates a notice to the Regulator, a copy to the responsible person, a regularisation certificate application, a copy to the Principal Accountable Person, and a safety case report update. A managing agent running fifteen higher-risk buildings would see that paperwork multiply rather than disappear, and the regularisation certificate is the piece most likely to be forgotten once the contractor has demobilised and the immediate risk has gone.

That is the operational evidence MHCLG is short of and cannot get from designers. If you have a job in the last two years where you waited for approval and paid for a temporary measure while waiting, or where you were unsure whether a replacement counted as a repair, that job is a consultation response.

#How To Respond Before 3 September 2026

The consultation closes on 3 September 2026. If you are reading this before that date, two routes are open.

1. The online portal, which MHCLG prefers: consult.communities.gov.uk/higher-risk-buildings/proportionality-of-the-emergency-repairs-provision. You can answer a subset of the 34 questions and skip the rest.
2. Email to [email protected] with the subject line "Emergency repairs consultation response".

Answer the questions where you hold evidence and leave the others. A response covering three questions with a dated example against each is more usable than a position statement covering all 34. Name the building type rather than the building if commercial sensitivity is a concern, give the month and year, and say what the delay cost.

We took the same approach to the BSR fire-safety consultation earlier in 2026, and the pattern that works is the same one: one proposal, one operational consequence, one dated artefact from records you already keep.

#Common Questions

#Can emergency repairs to a higher-risk building start before the Building Safety Regulator approves them?

Yes, in the narrow case set out in regulation 10 of the Building (Higher-Risk Buildings Procedures) (England) Regulations 2023. Where work consists only of emergency repairs and it is not practicable to get building control approval first, the client must notify the Building Safety Regulator as soon as reasonably practicable after work has started, copy that notice to the responsible person, and apply for a regularisation certificate afterwards. Approval is deferred, never removed.

#What counts as an emergency repair under the higher-risk building regime?

Regulation 10(2) of SI 2023/909 defines emergency repairs as repairs to a building which are necessary to be carried out as a matter of urgency due to the risk to health, safety or welfare of persons in or about the building. It covers repairs only. Replacements and upgrades sit outside the wording, which is one of the things the MHCLG consultation is asking about.

#When does the MHCLG emergency repairs consultation close?

It opened on 9 July 2026 and closes on 3 September 2026. Responses go through the MHCLG Citizen Space portal for the proportionality of the emergency repairs provision, or by email to [email protected] with the subject line "Emergency repairs consultation response". The consultation is limited to England and is open to everyone.

#Would the consultation change what a Principal Accountable Person has to do?

The consultation does not propose changing the notification duties. It states that the critical works route would retain retrospective oversight by the Building Safety Regulator, using the same process the emergency repairs provision uses now. If the scope of the route widens, more jobs would generate an emergency notice, and each of those notices reaches the Principal Accountable Person as safety case report material.

#What are the three proposals in the consultation?

Proposal 1 retains the existing emergency repairs provision unchanged. Proposal 2 would widen it from emergency repairs to emergency works, so replacements and upgrades are covered. Proposal 3 is an alternative to proposal 2 and would create a separate critical works route for urgent work that falls outside the current definition. Proposals 2 and 3 are presented as alternatives to each other.

#Has the law on emergency repairs in higher-risk buildings changed?

No. This is a consultation, not a rule. Regulation 10 of SI 2023/909 is unchanged and its narrow wording is still the test. Nothing in the consultation document permits work that regulation 10 does not already permit.

#Further Reading

• MHCLG consultation: emergency repairs under the higher-risk building regime (GOV.UK, published 9 July 2026)
• Regulation 10, Building (Higher-Risk Buildings Procedures) (England) Regulations 2023 (legislation.gov.uk)
• Mandatory Occurrence Reporting: what building managers must report and when
• What a real safety case actually takes
• The PAP responsibilities guide

This post is for informational purposes. For building-specific advice, consult a qualified fire safety professional.

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