NEWS Government announces £1bn cladding funding


IN THE recent budget, Chancellor Rishi Sunak announced funding ‘to help strip combustible cladding from homes’ in both social housing and privately owned blocks. The Guardian reported on the


funding, which ‘goes beyond’ the original £600m ‘set aside’ for both social housing and privately owned blocks over 18m tall to help with removing combustible cladding. This was for buildings with aluminium composite material (ACM) cladding, but Mr Sunak said that this would ‘go beyond dealing with ACM to make sure that all unsafe combustible cladding will be removed’. Mr Sunak, the news outlet


added, had ‘accepted demands’ to ‘bail out’ hundreds of thousands of affected leaseholders, as residents ‘have faced soaring costs for mortgages, insurance and interim fire safety measures’. He had also ‘accepted expert advice’ that public funding ‘must concentrate on removing unsafe materials’ on high rise residential buildings’. The funding would ensure such


cladding would be removed ‘from every private and social residential building above 18m high’, and the government would continue to try and get building owners and developers to pay ‘their fair share’. However, The Guardian pointed out that ‘it remains unclear whether the fund will cover works on faulty fire


immediate and rapid development of a timetable for the removal of unsafe cladding, which will start as soon as practicably possible’. NFCC chair Roy Wilsher said:


doors and fire breaks’. Funding of £20m was also announced for fire and rescue services (FRSs), and the National Fire Chiefs Council (NFCC) ‘welcomed’ the announcement and ‘expresse[d] its relief’, adding that the funding was ‘precisely what NFCC has been calling for since the Grenfell Tower fire’. Previous funding ‘was a step in the right direction, but it did not go far enough’. The new funding would ‘help to ease and then finally remove the financial burden on leaseholders’, and ‘ensure people feel safe in their homes’. It was also ‘pleased to see’ the additional £20m for FRSs, which ‘will assist in carrying out vital inspection and enforcement work’, an area ‘consistently highlighted’ by the NFCC as ‘needing improvement’. However, while ‘broader work will continue’, funding ‘must now see the


‘NFCC’s role in working with Government and representing the views of fire services has been instrumental in bringing about the announcement. I am very pleased to see this funding announced, although I would have liked to have seen it made earlier. Leaseholders have been living with uncertainty and anxiety, in part due to them facing very high costs to pay for temporary “waking watch” and evacuation measures just to keep buildings safe while they are covered in dangerous cladding. ‘This anxiety is having a terrible and detrimental impact on people’s lives through no fault of their own. I am disappointed that many building owners did not step up to their responsibilities and take steps to rectify this much earlier, instead choosing to place the burden on people living within buildings clad in dangerous material. NFCC has been abundantly clear in all our work with government since the Grenfell Tower fire that fundamental reform of the building safety system is needed. NFCC will continue to call for change and work with government departments to ensure this becomes a reality.’


FSO responses summary published by government


THE GOVERNMENT has published a summary of responses to its call for evidence for the technical review into the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005 [FSO]. Last June, the Home Office


launched a call for evidence relating to the FSO, which ran until 31 July, alongside a government consultation. It was ‘seeking views’ on the FSO, which ‘underpins fire safety in non-domestic premises’, with both employers and business owners being asked for their perspectives. It specifically noted that the call


for evidence had come as part of the changes being made since


Dame Judith Hackitt’s review of building regulations and fire safety was published in May 2018. An analysis of responses was to be published and ‘inform the government’s next steps’, and the call for evidence ‘complements’ the Building a Safer Future consultation, which ‘outlines how the government proposes to take forward meaningful legislative reform in the building safety regulatory system’. A summary of the responses


received has now been published by the government, after it ‘invited views on the application of the FSO and sought to identify any changes


that might be needed and how they could be best achieved’. Some respondents identified


areas where the FSO ‘could be amended to provide greater clarity’, though most agreed its ‘scope and objectives […] remain appropriate for all regulated premises’. Additionally, most agreed that the FSO should ‘retain its focus on protecting lives over property’, and that it ‘should continue to provide a framework for a risk-based and proportionate approach to regulating fire safety’. A consultation ‘will be held later in the year on proposals and next steps’


www.frmjournal.com MAY 2020 17


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