From the ‘Medium-Rise Scheme’ to the ‘Cladding Safety Scheme’
The Cladding Safety Scheme will provide funding for the remediation or mitigation of the fire safety risks linked to unsafe external wall systems on medium-rise buildings where a responsible developer cannot be identified, traced or held responsible.
The government is pressing forward with ambitious plans to deliver safe buildings across the country.
Our approach to building safety is underpinned by these principles:
- We must make industry pay to fix the problems for which it is responsible.
- We must protect leaseholders.
- We must restore common sense to the assessment of building safety risks, speeding up fixing the highest risk buildings and stopping buildings being declared unsafe unnecessarily.
We are delivering on these principles so that people feel safe and secure in their homes and that those that are responsible for dangerous buildings pay to fix them. Through the Building Safety Act 2022, we are holding industry to account and have made sure that leaseholders are protected in law from the crippling bills that come with addressing historical safety defects, in homes they have been unable to sell.
The safety of residents across the country is paramount and dangerous external wall systems must be addressed as quickly as possible. To date, we have targeted funding on high-rise buildings with external cladding as they have posed the greatest risk to life.
In November 2022 we announced the pilot launch of a new fund delivered by Homes England, to address historical life safety fire risks associated with cladding on medium-rise residential buildings (those 11-18m in height).
The pilot initially targeted a selection of medium-rise buildings with interim or evacuation measures in place (buildings that fire services have identified as needing risk management measures).
Homes England are now increasing the scale of the pilot, reaching out to owners of over 700 buildings to invite them to participate. The large majority of these buildings will be medium rise, but the expanded pilot will also now include new applications from buildings outside London which are over 18m in height.
To reflect the expanded scope of the fund, we are changing the name of the fund from the ‘Medium-Rise Scheme’ to the ‘Cladding Safety Scheme’.
The Cladding Safety Scheme is expected to be launched in full later this year. In the meantime if you know someone who is responsible for a building which may be eligible, you can encourage them to register their details using Home England’s ‘Tell Us’ tool to access up to date information on the scheme.
The Building Safety Fund will continue to manage its existing commitments and there will be no change to the handling of the buildings which have already successfully applied to BSF prior to 9 May 2023.
Future applications from 18m+ buildings in London will continue to be managed by the Greater London Authority. 11-18m buildings in London will be managed by the Cladding Safety Scheme.