Salix Homes begins journey to become a Building a Safer Future Charter Champion

Salix Homes is demonstrating our commitment to building safety by being one of the very first organisations to begin the journey to become a Charter Champion organisation and utilise the robust benchmarking and verification process.

The Building a Safer Future (BSF) Charter has been created to promote an urgent and positive culture and behaviour change in the safety of the built environment. It focuses on putting people’s safety first in how we plan for, design, build, maintain, and look after the safety of the buildings we live, work or play in and protect those that use them.

Salix Homes is working to ensure that the five commitments of the BSF Charter, that demonstrate commitment to protecting life by putting safety first, ahead of all other building priorities, is at the heart of everything we do as an organisation.

The BSF Charter has just launched its ‘Charter Champion’ initiative to help organisations drive the systemic culture change required to put building safety first.

As an organisation, Salix Homes will now engage in a robust self-assessment, benchmarking and independent verification process to help us develop continuous improvement plans to advance our overall approach and performance on leadership and culture in relation to building safety.

The Building a Safer Future Charter has been endorsed by Dame Judith Hackitt as an “important programme which offers a real market differentiation opportunity” and the Charter was also highlighted by the Industry Safety Steering Group (ISSG) as a key mechanism for leading the culture change required for industry in their report for the Secretary of State and the Minister for Building Safety published in August 2020.

The Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Governments (MHCLG) and the HSE have also backed the BSF Charter Champion initiative.

Chief Executive of the Building a Safer Future Charter, Amanda Long said: “I am delighted to welcome the first companies, and particularly Salix Homes, on their journey to achieving Charter Champion Company status. These organisations are demonstrating real sectoral leadership and taking an important step in driving forwards the systemic culture change in relation to major hazard safety that is required across the built environment sector and through the entire value chain.

“In the built environment sector, the Grenfell Tower Disaster has put building safety at the top of everyone’s agenda. From a moral, social and economic perspective it’s now imperative that we embed enduring values, attitudes and ethical behaviours at the heart of all we do.

“The resounding message across the built environment sector is don’t wait for regulation, action should be taken urgently to tackle the culture surrounding building safety. The Building a Safer Future Charter is a practical and immediate way to demonstrate a commitment to this vital issue and begin the change required. It should be a priority for everyone.”

Sue Sutton, chief executive at Salix Homes, added: “Our industry has a collective responsibility to safeguard the people living in our buildings and ensure they are safe places to live both now and in the future, and at Salix Homes we are committed to raising the bar on building safety.

“We’re proud to be playing a key role in championing building safety culture change across the sector and have already been demonstrating our commitment to safety with our involvement in the Early Adopters initiative and the recent completion of our cladding remediation and enhanced safety programme, where we’ve implemented many of the new measures in the Draft Building Safety Bill.

“The Charter Champion initiative is the next step towards building a safer future and will pave the way for real change, so we are very pleased to be amongst the first organisations to set out on this journey to achieving Charter Champion Status.”

For more information about the Building a Safer Future Charter and how to get involved, visit https://buildingasaferfuture.org.uk/charter-champions-benchmarking-about/