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Only one ACM-clad block bags full costs from government’s £200m fund so far
Only one owner of a private tower block with Grenfell-style cladding has secured full government funding for remediation work out of 82 applications, latest figures show.
More than four months since the government launched a £200m fund to help owners of privately owned high rises remove aluminium composite material (ACM) cladding, just four applications have been approved.
Three of these were for only “pre-contract support”, while one was for “full costs”, figures published by the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG) today showed.
The deadline for applications was 31 December, but Inside Housing revealed earlier this week that officials are still considering applications if submitted quickly. MHCLG reiterated today that this was the case.
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Of the 78 other applications submitted, 15 have had their eligibility approved and eight have applied to recover either full costs or pre-contract costs. A total of 55 have submitted only a separate ‘eligibility’ application, of which eight have been approved.
Ministers have set a deadline of June this year for all unsafe ACM cladding to be removed and replaced on privately owned blocks.
In a statement, an MHCLG spokesperson said: “Residents’ safety remains our utmost priority which is why we are fully funding the removal of unsafe ACM cladding from high-rise social and private residential properties.
“The department is now working with applicants to ensure their applications can be approved as soon as possible.”
Today’s figures revealed that 315 buildings across England and Wales with ACM cladding are still to be fully remediated. A total of 91 of these are social housing blocks and 174 are privately owned.
There are 24 privately owned buildings for which the cladding status is “still to be confirmed”, two-and-a-half years since the Grenfell disaster, the update revealed. However MHCLG said it is now in contact with all these owners, “many of whom have come to light in recent months”.
A total of 135 buildings, across both the social and private housing sectors, have had remediation work completed as of the end of last month – up by eight from the end of November.
Inside Housing has called for the government to cover the cost of cladding works on private blocks through the End Our Cladding Scandal campaign, run alongside affected leaseholders.
