Rendall & Rittner welcomes launch of cladding fund
The Government’s £1 billion Building Safety Fund to remove potentially dangerous cladding from high-rise residential buildings has been officially launched by Housing Secretary Robert Jenrick MP and applicants can register from today, Monday 1st June. We wholeheartedly welcome this initiative and will be actively pursuing funding on behalf of residents and leaseholders at buildings that we manage that meet the criteria.
The new funding will cover the cost of remediation of non-ACM (Aluminium Composite Material) cladding systems on residential buildings that are 18 metres and over and do not comply with building regulations.
The introduction of the fund follows pressure from the industry for the government to take further action in the continued wake of the Grenfell tragedy and extend remediation to cover all unsafe combustible cladding. Rendall & Rittner was instrumental in bringing together the group of property managers, building owners and professional bodies that appealed to the government to step up and take action.
The availability of funding that goes beyond dealing solely with ACM cladding, as in the case of Grenfell, to cover all potentially unsafe cladding could not come soon enough. We are committed to move applications forward as quickly as possible to make these buildings safe for the future.
However, the fund will not cover costs relating to interim risk mitigation such as waking watches or work which has already commenced, which is costing leaseholders hundreds of thousands of pounds and seems entirely inequitable. This is something we would like the Government to review to meet the needs of all leaseholders.
