From Design to Duty: Why the Voice of Residents Must Be Heard
Five years on from our original blog, the central message remains unchanged: the people who live in our buildings must never be treated as an afterthought. In the post-Grenfell era, the industry has been forced to confront a hard truth: safety is not proved by paperwork alone, but by competence, accountability and the confidence of residents.
That is why the forthcoming UK Construction Industry Task Force working session in April 2026 matters so much. The Task Force exists to drive safety, competence and meaningful reform across construction, and its mission reflects a wider shift in the sector: away from complacency and towards evidence-based change. At the heart of that change must be the Voice of the Residents. Not as a slogan, but as a principle that shapes decisions, challenges assumptions and keeps the industry honest.
David Jones has championed that principle for many years. His advocacy has never been abstract. It is rooted in direct experience, in technical understanding, and in a deep belief that those most affected by building safety decisions must be heard properly. That commitment is strengthened by his own hands-on design background. In 1998, he was commissioned by Croydon LB to design overcladding solutions for high-rise residential tower blocks, and he incorporated his patent Gravity Opening Smoke Vent, or GOV, as a distinct inventive step beyond the traditional Automatic Opening Vent. Those Croydon HRRBs later passed fire test and assessment undertaken by BRE after Grenfell, underlining the importance of practical, tested and accountable solutions.
That achievement brings with it both pride and pain. Pride, because robust design can and does work. Pain, because the standards and competence of parts of the construction sector have fallen to a level that should concern everyone who cares about resident safety. As David has said, he is personally proud of the success of those design solutions, but sad, angry and certainly not proud that competence in parts of the sector has declined so sharply. That is not rhetoric. It is a warning.
The same concern applies to the way PAS 9980 has been used in practice. It was intended to support proportionate, risk-based external wall appraisal, but too often it has been applied in ways that are subjective, inconsistent and disconnected from the realities of building safety compliance. What is needed now is a more robust alternative methodology: one that gives proper weight to prescriptive compliance, uses clearer and more defensible assessment criteria, and avoids reducing resident safety to an exercise in managed uncertainty. The goal must be not a softer standard, but a more credible one—an approach that aligns technical judgement with public trust.
That is why the Task Force is so important. It brings together people from across the industry, including academics, policymakers and practitioners, in a shared effort to rebuild competence and confidence. Launching it in the historic surroundings of the Harold Wilson Large Select Committee Room in Portcullis House was therefore more than symbolic. It marked a serious attempt to reset the culture of the industry and to put accountability, integrity and resident experience back where they belong: at the centre of the conversation.
If the industry is to move forward, it must listen properly before it acts, and design properly before it declares success. The Voice of the Residents is not a secondary consideration. It is the test of whether reform is real. That is the mission David Jones has long championed, and it is the standard the sector must now meet.
Booking is open to attend the Task Force historic meeting on 30th April. BOOKING LINK