Remediation Acceleration Plan: industry figures highlight capacity concerns and lack of focus on non-cladding defects

Michael Wharfe, a partner at Devonshires, says: “The objectives aimed at identification of buildings and support of residents are reaffirming the building safety regime’s shift towards treating knowledge of buildings as a valuable resource and ensuring adequate protection for residents – both aims are commendable."

He points out that organisations responsible for high-rise flats should already know, since May 2022 at the latest, if their buildings have fire safety problems and of their responsibilities to risk assess and mitigate unsafe cladding.

Allowing seven to nine years to find and fix unsafe cladding “seems reasonable and realistic in principle, particularly where the hard deadline is tempered by the caveat without reasonable excuse”, Mr Wharfe says. 

On equal access to funding for social landlords to do the remediation work, he says it has been seen as a “positive step” by housing providers.

But he points out that cladding is not the only cost these providers face when it comes to fire safety and that the main gap of the plan is its complete focus on cladding.

Mr Wharfe explains: “While combustible cladding was certainly a primary factor in the Grenfell disaster, inadequate fire doors and fire-stopping were significant contributing factors.

“Another gap is the remediation of internal fire compartmentation (eg plasterboard linings), which is costly and disruptive, and often means residents need to move out of their homes while the necessary work is carried out.

“The practical reality is that a huge number of buildings suffer from similar types of fire safety defects that were present at Grenfell, in terms of passive fire protections, that are not within the remit of the proposed Remediation Bill.”

Douglas Rhodes, partner at Trowers & Hamlins, praises the plan’s aims to create certainty on which buildings need remediation and who is responsible for doing the work, as well as clarifying what needs to happen when work is assessed and completed.

But he stresses the complexities of some remediation work and the difficulties organisations face in solving these, as well as a lack of detail in how the solutions will be rolled out.

He says: “Where it [the plan] falls slightly short, to be fair to the government, is the hard stuff, which is, ‘OK, we know what the problems are. How are we actually going to fix it?’”

For example, if the legal duty to remediate is simply a deadline to complete work with a threat of criminal prosecution if this does not happen, he does not think this will do much.

“What you need is something that’s going to cut through the legitimate disagreements that are out there and mean that those disagreements fall away,” Mr Rhodes adds.

Due to the millions of pounds at stake, fights over who should pay for the work end up in court. This means, in his view, the fixed deadline is not going to make a huge amount of difference. “The trouble with the system as a whole is that you’ve got a lot of different interests in play, and that results in disagreements, hold-ups and delays,” he explains.

Different legislation has different standards for remediation and there is no binding authority for what is required, Mr Rhodes says. He agrees that more could be done to develop stronger guidance on meeting standards, though the plan does discuss improving the remediation assessment pathway when parliamentary time allows and said updated guidance on PAS 9980 is expected by early 2026.

Improving the capacity of the Building Safety Regulator is “of crucial importance” due to the problem of delays, Mr Rhodes states.

Giles Grover, co-lead of the End Our Cladding Scandal (EOCS) campaign, highlights the importance of social housing providers having equal access to funding, although he adds that details of what this means in reality are still “vague”.

The move will avoid delays at the start of the process driven by social landlords taking legal action, he says, and the announcement of funding for buildings smaller than 11 metres is very much welcome, but detail is still needed on how quickly this will work in practice.

The new National Remediation System database is exactly what EOCS has been calling for “in terms of having a single version of the truth for all buildings across all funding schemes”, Mr Grover says.

But he is clear that the plan has gaps on how non-cladding defects for which there is no public funding will be tackled, such as unprotected steelwork, fire doors or compartmentation defects.

In his view, these problems are a key reason why remediation has been held up because freeholders did not want to sign funding agreements in case they have to pay for non-cladding work or where freeholders demand non-qualifying leaseholders stump up thousands of pounds for unfunded remediation before work can begin in a single-phase project.

Mr Grover adds: “We need the National Remediation System to become a ‘national remediation scheme’, to take the weight from leaseholders and residents who are still battling freeholders, developers, housing associations and their agents for clear answers.

“People must have that certainty of a pathway to remediation regardless of the funding scheme.

“If you have strict deadlines and backstop mechanisms for all buildings, you’ll have that confidence in the wider market, because right now there are too many different approaches to risk and disputes over who will pay to make a building fully safe as all parties focus on covering their backsides and mitigating their liability.” 

Alistair Smyth, director of policy and research at the National Housing Federation, which helped shape the Remediation Acceleration Plan, said the body is pleased to see more resources and welcomes the political will to speed up the pace of remediation. But he is clear that challenges remain.

“The increased access to the Cladding Safety Scheme and additional £1bn of funding will make a big difference to the sector’s ability to carry out essential works,” Mr Smyth says.

“However, there are broader issues around the capacity of contractors and concerns around supply chains that also determine the pace of remediation. We will continue to share with the government any risks these issues pose to meeting deadlines for remediation.”

The National Housing Federation supports the database, saying the lack of such a system has been “historically challenging”, and stresses that the stricter sanctions for delays will only apply where no reasonable excuse has been given.