Government could miss target date for cladding removal

Britain’s spending watchdog said the government could miss completion dates for cladding removal if no progress is made to speed up the process.

exist a new reportThe National Audit Office (NAO) said up to 60 per cent of buildings with hazardous cladding have not yet been identified by the government and, at current progress, are expected to miss the project’s expected 2035 completion date.

The report is as follows Conclusions of September’s Grenfell inquirythe agency found risks had been overlooked and there was “systemic dishonesty” among those making and selling the cladding responsible for the 2017 fire in west London that killed 72 people.

The government has been contacted for response.

The report assesses the speed with which the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG) has completed work to replace dangerous cladding on tower blocks in England and aims to provide an update on the situation Previous NAO 2020 report.

The report found that since then there had been a “significant increase in rehabilitation activity”, with 4,771 buildings over 11 meters tall being included in the government’s rehabilitation program as of August.

However, the NAO went on to say that an estimated 7,200 buildings in England with such cladding have yet to be discovered, some of which “may never be seen”.

Progress in replacing cladding has also been slow, the study found.

Although MHCLG spent £2.3bn carrying out works on identified buildings, the report said around a third of this work had only been completed and half had not yet started.

The government’s recommended deadline for completing these building cladding works is 2035, but it is currently impossible to meet this deadline and “significant challenges need to be overcome”, the report said.

The NAO recommended that if progress in identifying buildings with hazardous cladding does not improve by the end of 2024, the government should consider additional measures.

These include compulsory registration for medium-sized buildings – as well as for high-rise buildings Construction Safety Act 2022tougher enforcement activities and actions to help resolve disputes between residents and property owners.

“Many still don’t know when their buildings will be safe, causing residents to suffer significant financial and emotional distress,” the report said.

The regulator also highlighted problems with capping taxpayer contributions to the project at £5.1 billion.

MHCLG estimates the cost of all works at £16.6bn, the NAO said, although the government plans to recover around £3.4bn from new works Building safety levyis not expected to launch until fall 2025 at the earliest.

in London, More than £1bn has been spent removing dangerous cladding on towers for the past six years.

The Greater London Authority, which manages the schemes on behalf of the government, said 58 per cent of the problems were now fully fixed or work was ongoing.

The report’s findings come after Chancellor Rachel Reeves announced in the Budget that the Government will invest more than £1 billion in 2025-26 to repair buildings with hazardous cladding. These include new investment to speed up the rehabilitation of social housing.

Gareth Davies, head of the NAO, said: “There is still a long way to go to ensure that all affected buildings are safe and MHCLG must address the risks if its approach is to succeed.

“In the long term, in order to stick to the £5.1 billion cap, MHCLG needs to ensure it can recoup funds through the successful implementation of the proposed building safety levy.”

Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown, chairman of the House of Commons Public Accounts Committee, who has previously met with survivors of the Grenfell fire, said “the scheme is behind schedule and MHCLG needs to step up and get it back on track”, He added that “the government must take measures to better protect taxpayers.”

“It urgently needs to ensure its fraud controls are working and that developers bear their costs fairly.”