Building owners have 5 years to remove dangerous cladding, or they face potential prison sentences
On 2nd December, in open letters to building owners with ACM cladding and buildings benefitting from the Building Safety Fund and Cladding Safety schemes, it was made clear that it was unacceptable that many buildings still had unsafe cladding 7 years after the Grenfell Tower disaster. It was emphasised that every effort must be made to remove dangerous cladding for the protection of residents; therefore, notwithstanding the acknowledged delays within the BSR to approve proposed works, the expectation has been set that remediation work start as soon as possible in 2025 (and by a hard deadline of 31 March 2025 for buildings with ACM cladding).
From the published data, remedial work on up to 32% of all buildings (482 in total) that are benefitting from Government funding had not yet started. This number does not account for buildings that the Government is not aware of, and the true number of buildings still with unsafe cladding is likely significantly higher. Therefore, the decision has been made that radical action is needed.
Remediation Acceleration Plan
As part of this action, the Government published its Remediation Acceleration Plan for increasing the pace of remediation of buildings in England, which consists of measures to help to remedy buildings faster, identify at risk buildings quicker and to provide support to residents that are impacted. This plan has been made in conjunction with the developers that signed the developer remediation contract (of which 29 of the 54 developers have currently signed up to the joint plan) with a goal to double the overall rate at which buildings are assessed and remediated.
This plan has 6 main objectives:
- To improve resident experience of remedial works;
- Accelerate work to find all unsafe buildings requiring remedial work;
- Improve the quality of assessments to determine if work is needed;
- Accelerate any work that is required;
- Accelerate resolution of cost-recovery negotiations between developers and registered providers of social housing; and
- Establish a working group with the Government and developers to remove any remaining barriers to remediation.
As part of this plan, developers must commit to make every effort to assess all their buildings by the end of July 2025, start or complete remedial works on 80% of their buildings by the end of July 2026, start or complete remedial work on all their buildings by the end of July 2027 and conclude cost negotiations with social housing providers by the end of July 2025.
Remediation Enforcement Support Fund
To assist with this ambitious delivery, it was acknowledged local authorities and fire and rescue services needed access to financial resources to help them in pursuing appropriate enforcement action. The Government has therefore set up the Remediation Enforcement Support Fund to fill any gap in funding for regulators (e.g. fire services and local authorities) that wish to use their enforcement powers to pursue landlords that are failing to undertake remedial works or those who would be liable for funding those works. This is to include funding of £5,000 to allow fire services and local authorities procure independent advice on whether cases can be brought and up to £100,000 to obtain third-party expert services to purse legal cases.
Combined with the Building Safety Minister's recent comments that
"we have a range of powers already, ranging from fines to prison sentences... we will use that basket of tools in whatever way with each building to get it resolved. We have committed that that will be the case by the end of this decade"
it is clear that building owners and landlords that are failing to promptly remedy their buildings could potentially be facing increased pressure and significant legal ramifications if they fail to progress remediation of defective buildings.
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