I too have lost count of the number of new buildings I have encountered with identical problems. it cuts across all sectors but is at its worst in student accommodation. Also rife in schools, Residential buildings, warehouses, offices. Often other aspects of the fire design are also watered down in "compensation" for so called additional precautions when these too are very compromised. The building industry is in a dreadful state, usually CDM is just lipservice. The demise of the co-ordination that used to be delivered through a clerk of works was one of the major causes. Now all you have is a huge heap of individual contractors all submitting loads of paperwork such as methods statements and risk assessments to the Principal Contractor but nobody making sure that they work in a co-ordinated way, too good standards, as per design and above all that they are not undoing each others work as they blunder through.
