The government’s Remediation Acceleration Plan to resolve building safety delays

Notwithstanding the government’s interventions to date, 7 years after the Grenfell fire tragedy, thousands of unsafe buildings are yet to be remediated. The newly announced Remediation Action Plan is the government’s attempt to resolve these delays. This Law-Now provides a summary of the measures proposed in the plan.

Overview

Following Grenfell in 2017, the government has taken various steps to encourage and then compel building owners to identify and remediate life-critical fire safety defects in the external wall build of their buildings. The approach has evolved over time, with the creation of the government backed remediation fund in 2020; the enactment of the Building Safety Act in 2022 (bringing with it extended limitation periods and new rights of action against relevant parties); and more recently the introduction in early 2023 of remediation contracts, pursuant to which developers agreed to meet remedial costs for their buildings. The scope of the buildings and defects covered has also expanded over time. Nevertheless, there are up to 10,000 buildings where remedial works have not concluded. To address these delays, on 2 December 2024, Angela Rayner, Deputy Prime Minister and Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government announced the government’s Remediation Acceleration Plan (“RAP”).

The RAP is focused on forcing developers and those with repairing obligations (including landlords and freehold owners) to speed up remediation. The government has identified six barriers to making buildings safe, including reluctance on behalf of landlords to undertake measures to assess and remediate buildings; issues with contractor capacity to undertake remediation; and developer disputes with freeholders over access to properties. Regulator issues, including scarcity of resource, is also blamed for the lack of progress.

The objectives of the RAP are three-fold: 1) to fix buildings faster; 2) to identify buildings with unsafe cladding; and 3) support residents who face difficulties (including financial) while waiting for remediation works to take place.

Landlords and developers

Developers and landlords face criticism for failures to remediate. To tackle this, the government has set the following timescales.

Landlords

Landlords face the threat of severe penalties if, by the end of 2029, buildings with unsafe cladding of 11m plus have not been remediated, or a completion date for remedial works has not been set.

Developers – the Joint Plan

Criticism is levied at developers who signed up to the developer remediation pledge and contract, but have failed to progress remedial works in accordance with those agreements. A group of major developers met with the government in November to discuss the problems with remediation. They have made 35 commitments recorded in a joint remediation plan (the “Joint Plan”). These commitments span the following 6 areas:

• improving resident experience of remedial works;
• accelerating work to find all unsafe buildings requiring remedial works;
• improving quality of assessments used to determine whether a building requires remedial works;
• accelerating work to fix buildings;
• accelerating resolution of cost-recovery negotiations between developers and social housing providers;  and
• establishing a developer-government working group to unblock remaining barriers to remediation.

The Joint Plan also contains ambitious “stretch targets” which some developers have signed up to, with others expected to do so soon. They are to:

• finish assessing all their buildings by the end of July 2025;
• start or complete remedial works on 80% of their buildings by the end of July 2026;
• start or complete remedial works on all their buildings by the end of July 2027; and
• resolve all current cost-recovery negotiations with social housing providers by the end of July 2025.

As at the date of the government’s announcement, at least 29 developers (accounting for over 90% of the buildings the developers need to remediate) had “endorsed the commitments” in the Joint Plan.

Reference is also made to the government plans for taking “formal performance action” against developers, and that the government will not hesitate to take further action against those developers who fail to prioritise the assessment of building remediation.

The government will also publish guidance where third party disputes are delaying remediation works. It is not clear at this stage what the guidance will look like.

Letters to those responsible for remediation

Alongside the announcement, the Secretary of State wrote to organisations responsible for the remediation of buildings registered with the Building Safety Fund or the Cladding Safety Scheme to “clarify [the] government’s expectations regarding the remediation of unsafe cladding”. The government’s expectation, as set out in the letter, is that remediation of these buildings will start “as soon as possible in 2025” and those who are required to undertake remedial works and fail to achieve this, will be held to account. Direct legal action is threatened.

New legal powers and legal/regulatory issues

Separately, to facilitate the progress of remediation, the government proposes to legislate in a number of ways:

• Penalise landlords: threats are made to pursue those with repair obligations that fail to take action to remediate unsafe buildings, and legislation will be brought in “to create a clear and legal duty on those responsible for buildings 11m and over to take the necessary steps to fix their buildings within clear timescales”. Indeed, more than 50 local authorities have already taken enforcement action (involving 483 buildings of 11m and over with unsafe cladding). In addition, Reference is made to criminal sanctions for those who ultimately fail to remove unsafe cladding.
• Strengthen enforcement powers: The government will work to strengthen the enforcement powers of regulators and other entities with enforcement capabilities, including local authorities and the fire and rescue service, including providing additional funding.
• Identifying parent and associated companies: The Secretary of State highlighted the difficulties with identifying the parent/associated companies that sit behind the legal owners of properties, i.e. those taking the financial benefit and with the decision-making powers. New legislation is to be brought in to force building owners to disclose their beneficial ownership chains, and the Secretary of State and regulators will be provided with the powers to compel these entities to do so where necessary.
• Better fund access to legal advice: A new Remediation Enforcement Support Fund is to be launched with the aim of providing local and fire and rescue authorities with the means to access specific legal advice to facilitate the pursuit of those responsible for fixing defective cladding.
• Increase the capacity of the Recovery Strategy Unit (RSU): This unit has already obtained Remediation Orders (“ROs”) forcing owners of 10 properties to undertake remediation, and has applied for Remediation Contribution Orders (“RCOs”) seeking recovery of up to £72 million for remedial work costs. These powers will be bolstered, and as part of the RAP, additional funding will be provided to the RSU to increase the number of RO and RCO applications.

Next steps

With recognition that “the scale and importance of the challenge is so significant”, the Secretary of State plans to announce a long-term strategy on accelerating remediation of social housing properties in Spring 2025 and promises to provide a further progress update in the Summer of 2025.

References:

Remediation Acceleration Plan, 2 December 2024