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New figures reveal that Grenfell-style cladding is yet to be removed from the walls of 246 tower blocks despite government’s promise the work would have finished last month.
Monthly data on the progress of removal of aluminium composite material (ACM) cladding from tall buildings, released today, shows that work had fully completed on 158 of 455 affected buildings by the end of June.
This was an increase of just six buildings since May.
A further 51 have had the deadly materials stripped from the walls, but are yet to complete the remediation work.
That leaves 246 tall buildings which still have ACM systems on their walls, a full three years after the fire at Grenfell which killed 72 people.
In July last year, then-housing secretary James Brokenshire issued a written statement that said he expected all cladding remediation to be finished by June this year.
When he made this statement there were 327 tall buildings with an ACM cladding system considered to be dangerous that did not have work completed.
Including those which have stripped the ACM but not yet completed remediation, there are still 297 to go to meet this pledge, which the government backed away from last month.
The figures show that 78 social housing blocks have completed remediation work – up three – while 67 have started and 10 are yet to begin. In the private sector, 29 have completed, 70 have started work and 107 are yet to begin.
The remaining buildings are student housing, hotels and a variety of public sector properties.
These figures only cover buildings with ACM cladding systems above 18m.
There are thought to be at least 1,700 tall buildings with dangerous non-ACM systems and potentially thousands more medium-rise towers with dangerous cladding.