iStock
Registrations are now being taken for the Building Safety Fund, the £1bn pot of money pledged by the government in the March Budget announcement.
Designed to help building owners and landlords replace unsafe non-Aluminium Composite Material (ACM) cladding on residential and mixed-use commercial buildings that stand more than 18 metres high, the Building Safety Fund is open to both private and social sectors. The fund will meet the cost of remediating non-ACM cladding systems where building owners are unable to do so in order to address some of the barriers to remediation being carried out quickly.
In the private sector, where eligible, the Building Safety Fund will meet the capital costs of removing and replacing unsafe non-ACM cladding systems on high rise residential buildings which would otherwise be passed on to leaseholders.
In the social sector, where providers qualify, the government will meet the capital cost of the remediation to high rise residential buildings regulated as social housing. For social providers whose viability is not threatened by the cost of work, the government said it will open a claim process in July 2020 to meet the remediation costs which would otherwise be passed to leaseholders.
Building owners, freeholders or other responsible entities are being asked to register for the fund now to enable the program to confirm eligibility for the fund in principle, based on a technical assessment of the height of the building and an assessment of the non-ACM cladding system.
The registration process opened earlier this month and will remain open until 31 July 2020. Full guidance and an application process for buildings which meet the technical criteria will be available by the end of July 2020.
In January, the government announced that the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) will establish a Building Safety Regulator once the new Fire Safety Bill has been enacted to implement the legislative recommendations from the Grenfell Tower public inquiry phase 1 report.