Unsafe cladding: Remediation acceleration plan for England
This week, MHCLG published a new plan to accelerate the remediation of buildings with unsafe cladding, working with local government, regulators and the sector, setting two goals for this parliament.
- Al 18m+ (high-rise) buildings with unsafe cladding in a government funded scheme will have been remediated.
- Every 11m+ building with unsafe cladding will either have been remediated, have a date for completion, or the landlords will be liable for severe penalties.
The plan is built around carrots of additional funding and support, and sticks of stricter enforcement. Key measures include a requirement to register all 11-18m residential buildings to streamline identification, new legal obligations to fix buildings within clear timescales, with financial and criminal penalties for inaction, and more funding for enforcement, the implementation of the Building Safety Levy from Autumn 2025, additional funding for social landlords to deliver remediation, and support to limit the financial impact on residents.
In addition, a joint plan agreed with developers and government has made commitments across similar themes, (including accelerating identification, assessment, and remediation of buildings, improving residents’ experiences, accelerating cost-recovery negotiations between developers and social housing, and establishing an ongoing developer-government working group to address further barriers). This is significant insofar as it is indicative of a welcome collaborative approach to addressing these issues.
As such, this is less a new approach, than a strengthening of existing approaches, to accelerate work which was progressing too slowly. Government has committed to providing a progress update and outlining further action (if needed) in summer 2025.
The full plan can be found here. Should you have any questions, please contact [email protected]