More than 2,000 buildings in the UK still have unsafe cladding, according to Housing Secretary Angela Rayner, who has said it is “not acceptable”. Rayner has promised to put pressure on developers to remove the cladding as part of a crackdown on the building safety crisis. The announcement comes after a report on the 2017 Grenfell Tower fire concluded that all 72 deaths were entirely avoidable, with flammable cladding identified as the most significant factor. Campaigners have claimed that those still living in buildings fitted with such materials are facing higher service fees and are unable to sell their properties.
As of July, work at half of the 4,630 buildings over 11m identified as needing dangerous cladding removed had not started. Upgrades are under way at 949 buildings, while 1,350 have seen completion. Rayner said she was “astonished” at the number of buildings where work was still required. She also acknowledged that it had been slowed down by the “very complex” ownership structures behind some developments. Some are owned offshore, and Rayner is currently looking at ways to “hold these building owners to account”.
The Cladding Safety Scheme, established by the prior government in November 2022, provided financial assistance to the person or organisation legally responsible for external repairs when they are unable to fund the work themselves. But Giles Grover, from the End Our Cladding Scandal campaign, has criticised successive governments for “ignoring, delaying or disregarding” the danger. He also said he wants the Labour party to show it has the political will to make the construction industry, rather than leaseholders, pay for it.
The Grenfell Tower inquiry has set out 58 recommendations to avert similar tragedies in the future, to which the UK government must respond in around six months. Rayner stressed the need for time to go through the 1,700-page report “in detail”. The six-year public inquiry’s findings prompted UK Prime Minister, Sir Keir Starmer, to offer an official apology on behalf of the government to victims of the tragedy. The report outlined the “systematic dishonesty” by cladding and insulation manufacturers who made false and misleading claims. It further concluded that how building safety is managed in England and Wales is “seriously defective”
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