The Government has today announced a new plan to deal with the ‘cladding crisis’ which, since the tragedy of Grenfell Tower, has affected leaseholders who would have had to pay the cost of removal of unsafe cladding.
The new four-point plan will protect leaseholders and make wealthy developers and companies pay to fix the cladding crisis.
The plan includes:
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Opening up the next phase of the Building Safety Fund to drive forward taking dangerous cladding off high-rise buildings, prioritising the government’s £5.1 billion funding on the highest risk
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Those at fault will be held properly to account: a new team is being established to pursue and expose companies at fault, making them fix the buildings they built and face commercial consequences if they refuse
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Restoring common sense to building assessments: indemnifying building assessors from being sued; and withdrawing the old, misinterpreted government advice that prompted too many buildings being declared as unsafe; and
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New protections for leaseholders living in their own flats: with no bills for fixing unsafe cladding and new statutory protections for leaseholders within the Building Safety Bill
Harlow’s MP, Robert Halfon, has strongly welcomed the announcement. He said: “I have been contacted by residents facing the extreme anxiety of having to pay for unsafe cladding to be removed. I have written to the Government about a number of cases and have lobbied Ministers to ensure Harlow residents did not face unfair costs and charges.
“The announcement from the Government today means that leaseholders will now be protected in law and it will be the developers who caused and profited from this, that will pay for this crisis.
“It was entirely wrong that hard working residents were faced with these costs and I know this news has been welcomed across the political divide. I hope that every resident impacted will now be supported.
“More information can be found on the Government website, here, and I would strongly encourage any resident affected by this to contact me via email.”
Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Michael Gove, said:
“More than 4 years after the Grenfell Tower tragedy, the system is broken. Leaseholders are trapped, unable to sell their homes and facing vast bills. But the developers and cladding companies who caused the problem are dodging accountability and have made vast profits during the pandemic whilst hard working families have struggled.
“From today, we are bringing this scandal to an end – protecting leaseholders and making industry pay. We will scrap proposals for loans and long-term debt for leaseholders in medium-rise buildings and give a guarantee that no leaseholder living in their own flat will pay a penny to fix dangerous cladding.
“Working with members of both Houses, we will look to bring a raft of leaseholder protections into law through our Building Safety bill.
“And we will restore much needed common sense on building safety assessments, ending the practice of too many buildings being declared unsafe.”
Dame Judith Hackitt, who chaired the Independent Review of Building Regulations and Fire Safety said:
“Today’s announcement by the Secretary of State is very welcome and should come as a great relief to the many leaseholders who have felt trapped by the prospect of having to pay for remediating defects to properties which they bought in good faith.
“Those who caused the problem now need to step up, take responsibility and show some leadership. This problem has gone on for too long and we need a rapid solution, not months of debate and negotiation leaving innocent leaseholders in further limbo.”
