The Government have announced a new building safety fund designed to meet the cost for unsafe non-ACM cladding on residential buildings that are 18 metres and over, and don't comply with building regulations.
Three years since the Grenfell Tower fire tragically claimed the lives of 72 people, over 300 residential blocks in England still have the same style ACM cladding used on Grenfell Tower. A further 1700 buildings have another form of dangerous cladding on them.
The Government is already providing £600 million for the replacement of ACM cladding systems, with critics saying that this amount was not enough. This new £1 billion fund seeks to provide more help for buildings with dangerous cladding.
The building safety fund is targeted at supporting leaseholders in the private sector who are being faced with significant bills for the removal of dangerous cladding from their buildings. Leaseholders in social sector buildings will have funding provided for by the Government to meet the costs that would have otherwise been borne by leaseholders.
Housing Secretary Robert Jenrick MP urged building owners to act and put the safety of residents first. Ministers said those building owners who are already remediating their buildings should continue to do so, and explore every opportunity to fund this work before seeking funding from Government or passing on costs to their leaseholders.
Building owners, freeholders or responsible entities who think they may be eligible for the fund have until 31 July 2020 to register. The fund's application process has been designed to enable projects to proceed at pace as applications for funding can be progressed alongside the development of the remediation project.
