Owners of unsafe 18m+ residential buildings are being ordered to start recladding works by 2027 to meet a fresh target to make all the country’s at risk high-rise blocks safe by 2029.
Also under the new Remediation Acceleration Plan, owners of the thousands of 11m+ building with unsafe cladding will need to have completed or at aleast set date for completion of remediation works to avoid severe financial penalties.
The plan is backed by further investment in enforcement – so that local authorities, fire and rescue authorities and the Building Safety Regulator have the capacity to tackle hundreds of cases per year.
Also the government will publish a joint action plan with developers to accelerate their work to fix buildings for which they are responsible.
At least 29 developers, covering over 95% of the buildings which developers are remediating themselves, have committed to more than doubling the rate at which they have been assessing and starting to fix unsafe buildings, meaning work on all their buildings will start by summer 2027.
To date, 95% of buildings with the same type of cladding used on Grenfell have been remediated.
But only 30% of identified buildings in England have been remediated, with potentially thousands more buildings yet to be identified.
Since July, the Government has engaged with Mayors, local enforcement agencies and developers to address the unacceptably slow pace of remediation and will now set out its plan to speed it up.
Remediation Acceleration Plan objectives
- Fix buildings faster: Expedite remediation of high-risk buildings with clear deadlines and penalties for non-compliance.
- Identify all unsafe buildings: Identify all buildings with unsafe cladding through advanced data assessments and the creation of a comprehensive building register.
- Support residents: Protect residents from the financial burdens of remediation and improve their experience throughout the process.
Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner said: “More than seven years on from the Grenfell tragedy, thousands of people have been left living in homes across this country with dangerous cladding.
“The pace of remediation has been far too slow for far too long. We are taking decisive action to right this wrong and make homes safe.