You are viewing 1 of your 1 free articles
Housing associations secure £116m from cladding removal fund
Housing associations have been given a total of £116m by the government to remove dangerous cladding from their high-rise buildings, latest figures have revealed.
In a written parliamentary response, housing secretary James Brokenshire revealed that housing associations have secured £116m of the £248m handed out so far for social landlords to remove aluminium composite material (ACM) cladding.
The £116m has been spread across 31 housing associations, with the government providing 80% of costs upfront and a further 20% when the work is complete and final costs are known.
The remaining £132m was handed to 12 local councils to fund cladding removal, with Camden Council confirming in October that it has secured £80m of this fund.
The details of the level of funding secured by housing associations was revealed in a response to Labour’s shadow housing secretary John Healey.
READ MORE
Mr Healey also asked for a breakdown of the funding by removal and replacement works, which Mr Brokenshire said he was unable to do.
The £248m comes from the £400m fund announced by the prime minister in May to pay for ACM cladding to be removed from social housing buildings.
In total, the remediation of 135 buildings is currently being funded by the government’s social housing fund.
Earlier this year the government received a total of 159 applications for funding from owners of buildings over 18m.
A total of 12 claims from landlords were rejected, with the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG) deeming the claims “not eligible” due to the blocks being below 18 metres, owned by commercial freeholders or clad with non-ACM materials.
A further 12 have been deferred, so the building owners can provide more information about their eligibility.
Last week, latest building safety statistics from the MHCLG revealed a total of 160 social sector buildings had been identified as having ACM cladding.
Remediation has been completed on 34 of these buildings, remediation has started on 82, while 41 had a remediation plan in place or were developing plans.
Progress in the private sector has been slower, with remediation work starting on no new buildings for the past two and a half months.
