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Nearly half of all social sector Building Safety Fund claims rejected

Nearly half of all claims made by social housing landlords to secure grant funding from the government’s multibillion-pound Building Safety Fund have been rejected, new government figures reveal.

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Nearly half of all claims made by social housing landlords to secure grant funding from the government’s multibillion-pound Building Safety Fund have been rejected, new government figures reveal #UKhousing

Data for May released today by the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG) today shows that of the 73 claims that have been reviewed by the government’s building safety team, only 39 have been accepted, and 34 have been found to be ineligible for funding.

Social landlords, which include housing associations and councils, have made 175 claims, with 73 reviewed. A further 94 eligible claims have been lodged but are subject to review. Nine social housing landlords had withdrawn their applications.

For the landlords that have been successful, a total £72.5m has been granted so far to the social landlords that have had successful applications.


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In March 2020, chancellor Rishi Sunak announced that the government would be launching a £1bn Building Safety Fund aimed at covering the costs of removing dangerous non-ACM cladding for leaseholders living in blocks taller than 18 metres. In February, this was increased by £3.5bn, taking the total pot up to £5bn.

Social landlords are able to apply for funding for blocks that exclusively house leaseholders or shared owners, but also mixed-tenure buildings.

For example, if a block that needs remediation includes 20 leaseholders and 20 renters, a landlord will be able to apply to cover the costs it would otherwise have billed to those leaseholders.

In the private sector, the figures today reveal that there have been a total of 2,820 applications from private residential blocks, with 1,628 of them coming from blocks in London and 1,192 from the rest of England.

As part of the Building Safety Fund process, building owners or property managers must register themselves with MHCLG, providing technical information for the department to assess whether they are eligible for the application stage. If this is accepted, buildings can move forward through the application stage with the department carrying out more checks to see if the building is eligible for pre-tender support and further support to carry out the main cladding removal work.

Of the 2,820 registrations, 1,994 had been reviewed, with 685 being deemed eligible to proceed with a full application.

Of the remaining 1,309 registrations, 491 applications were deemed ineligible, 492 had been withdrawn, while the government had asked for further information from 326 applicants.

In addition, 134 registrations were in the process of being reviewed and for 692 blocks there was not enough evidence available to carry out verification to deem whether they were eligible.

The amount of money allocated through the Building Safety Fund has now reached £428m, including social sector funding.

This includes £207.8m to 89 private buildings whose full applications for funding have been approved and allocated, and £47.7m fully allocated to 28 buildings with ACM or non-ACM cladding. In these cases, the ACM removal is funded through the £200m ACM removal fund.

In addition to this, 217 buildings have been allocated a total of £97.2m to fund pre-tender works. The Building Safety Fund also covers planning work that comes before the actual removal, including surveying work.

Tower Hamlets is by far and away the area of the country with the highest number of registrations, with 293. Manchester is second on the list with 144, while Newham is third with 138 registrations.

Despite the multibillion-pound fund, many leaseholders have said that they feel betrayed by the rules around which blocks are eligible. The money will not be available for blocks under 18 metres tall and it will not cover other fire safety issues, such as missing fire breaks and cavity barriers, or flammable insulation.

Instead, the government has set up a loan system to cover the cladding removal costs for those leaseholders in blocks under 18 metres tall.

There is currently little detail on exactly how this will work but it is understood that the works will be paid for up front and leaseholders will have to pay a monthly low-interest fee over a period of time to pay back the costs. The government has said that this fee will be limited to £50 a month.

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