Government tells developers to act on unsafe cladding

The Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, Michael Gove, wrote to housing developers that he is willing to use "legal rules" to make them pay for the removal of unsafe cladding from lower height buildings.

Following the Grenfell Tower fire in 2017, the government pushed for the unsafe cladding to be removed from all high-rise buildings, which was the primary cause of the rapid spread of the fire in which 72 people lost their lives. Initially, the push to remove unsafe cladding involved buildings that were 18 metres or taller, leaving residents of smaller blocks of flats with crippling bills to make their homes safer.

Now, the government will be introducing measures to ensure that all unsafe cladding from buildings taller than 11 metres is removed as well, and today Michael Gove announced that the government will act tough on companies that dodge their responsibilities.

The companies that are responsible for the buildings in scope are asked to agree to:

• make financial contributions to a dedicated fund to cover the full outstanding cost to remediate unsafe cladding on 11-18 metre buildings, currently estimated to be £4 billion;
• fund and undertake all necessary remediation of buildings over 11 metres that they have played a role in developing; and
• provide comprehensive information on all buildings over 11 meters that have historic safety defects and which they have played a part in constructing in the last 30 years.

In his letter, the Secretary of State said: "Our home should be a source of security and pride. For too many of the people living in properties your industry has built in recent years, their home has become a source of misery. This must change.

"It is neither fair nor decent that innocent leaseholders, many of whom have worked hard and made sacrifices to get a foot on the housing ladder, should be landed with bills they cannot afford to fix problems they did not cause."

"Government has accepted its share of responsibility and made significant financial provision through its ACM [Aluminium Composite Material Cladding] remediation programme and the Building Safety Fund. Some developers have already done the right thing and funded remedial works and I commend them for those actions.

"But too many others have failed to live up to their responsibilities."

Initially, the government pledged to pay for the replacement of all unsafe cladding on social housing flats and provided £1.6bn through the building safety fund in 2020 to help private firms. However, it was estimated that the complete replacement of unsafe cladding on blocks in England and Wales will cost around £15bn.