Dangerous cladding on all high-rise buildings in the UK will be fixed by the end of 2029 in a government-funded scheme, Angela Rayner has vowed.
The Deputy Prime Minister criticized the pace of repairs more than seven years after the Grenfell Tower fire, which killed 72 people, and announced on Monday that buildings over 18 meters high, including tough penalties for freeholders who fail to act, will Announced acceleration plans for buildings.
He also said that by the end of 2029, all buildings over 11 meters in height with dangerous cladding will be repaired or a date will be set for the completion of repair works, or landlords will be forced to pay large sums of money. He also said he would be fined.
Ministers claimed this was the first time a target date had been set for making buildings safe. But the End Our Cladding Scandal campaign coalition claimed it had only added yet more layers of bureaucracy, rather than the “meaningful change” the government had promised to oppose.
Mr Rayner said: “More than seven years after the Grenfell tragedy, thousands of people across this country continue to live in homes with unsafe cladding. The pace of repair has been too slow for far too long. We are taking decisive action to right this wrong and make our homes safer.
“Our Acceleration of Remediation Plan will ensure those responsible for making our buildings safe deliver the changes our residents need and deserve.”
The announcement of the plans follows a letter from Secretary of State for Housing Ray Liner to bodies responsible for repairing homes with unsafe cladding, setting new deadlines for work to start and imposing consequences if they don't act now. I told him I needed to face it.
The government said it has been working with mayors, local enforcement agencies and developers since July to address the unacceptably slow pace of repairs.
As well as identifying all unsafe buildings (the government wants to review more than 95% of buildings over 11 meters high by the end of next year) and repairing them faster, another key focus of the joint action plan is to The main purpose is to protect the population from danger. Financial burden associated with restoration.
Developers will double the rate of repair of buildings they are responsible for under the plan, underpinning investment in enforcement to help councils, fire and rescue authorities and building safety regulators deal with hundreds of incidents a year. It will be. .
The government said only 30% of buildings identified as at risk in England had been repaired, and there may be thousands more still to be identified.
Not only are residents living in fear, but they are also faced with soaring insurance and service fees, and are left with unsold apartments.
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'End Our Cladding Scandal' believes as many as 11,000 buildings over 11 meters high may still be at risk from flammable cladding.
Commenting on the announcement, campaign manager Giles Glover said: To be honest, everything feels a little performative at this point.
“It doesn't seem like we've overlooked anything, but there are too many funding schemes instead of a properly coordinated approach. It looks like we've just added another layer of bureaucracy and it's still all vague. Too much.”
He said Labor should do what it proposed in 2021 and set up a government-funded Building Works Authority to decide what work is needed, commission it and pay for it.
Mr Glover added that there were issues that had not been taken into account, such as buildings less than 11 meters high and leaseholders not eligible to be protected from remediation costs.
The government's announcement came on the same day that MPs were to debate the findings of the Grenfell Tower Inquiry's final report in Parliament. The report, released in September, blamed decades of government failures and corporate “systemic fraud” for the tragedy.
