Over half of social sector high rises with ACM cladding still not remediated

Of these, 126 buildings had not yet started remediation works at the end of May, down slightly from 131 in April. Twenty-nine buildings had completed remediation works and a further 52 had started, of which four are awaiting building control sign-off on completed works.

The government has taken steps to encourage building safety works to progress during the pandemic despite the lockdown and social distancing measures in place, after estimating at one point early in the lockdown that 70 per cent of sites had paused remediation works.

Access to government funds

Yesterday’s update stated that, in the social sector, funding for 139 of the 154 buildings has been provided from the Social Sector ACM Cladding Remediation Fund, while one late application is still under consideration. This position is unchanged from April.

To date, the fund has approved £270m for the removal and replacement of unsafe ACM, the report said.

In the private sector, 94 buildings are “in scope” and have submitted an application for the government’s £200m Private Sector Remediation Fund, the report said. Of these, 25 applications have been approved, an increase of 10 since the end of April, of which 13 will fund the full costs while 22 have been approved for “pre-contract support”.

As at 31 May, the fund had approved £33m for the removal and replacement of unsafe ACM, it said.

The government published the prospectus for its new £1bn Building Safety Fund for the removal of unsafe non-ACM cladding systems at the end of May.

This set out the limited circumstances in which registered providers and local authority landlords can access the fund, which the government said is “predominately targeted at supporting leaseholders in the private sector facing significant bills”.