This drinks party, kindly hosted by the Centre of Construction Law & Dispute Resolution (Dickson Poon School of Law, King’s College London), marks the launch of the second edition of Philip Britton and Matthew Bell, Residential Construction Law: The UK, Ireland, Australia and New Zealand (Hart Publishing, 2025). The first edition in 2021 was the first English-language book to focus on residential construction projects and their law; this second edition - significantly expanded - updates the story, integrating major regulatory and legal changes (many following the Grenfell Tower disaster and comparable safety concerns) in all the jurisdictions concerned.
Guest of honour at the launch will be HH Frances Kirkham CBE, writing a Foreword for both editions; in this field, she is remembered as a TCC judge in Birmingham and as Coroner in the inquest into the 2009 Lakanal House deaths.
Of the second edition, Julian Bailey, author of the magisterial Construction Law (4th ed, LPP) has said: 'It gives the reader clear statements of the law in each jurisdiction covered, but it goes further than that. It identifies areas that are undergoing development, and matters of policy that could guide further legal reform, or conversely temper it … Residential Construction Law is an essential text for lawyers in this field.’ At the launch, hardback copies of the new book will be on sale from Hart at a discount.
