Eight years on from the Grenfell fire, a report from the Committee of Public Accounts has found residents and taxpayers are still facing unacceptable levels of uncertainty, a lack of action in resolving the cladding crisis and unsaleable properties.

The Remediation of Dangerous Cladding report states: “MHCLG’s (Ministry of Housing, Communities & Local Government) Remediation Acceleration Plan lacks ambition. It fails to address the impact of non–cladding defects on progress with cladding remediation and will not make product manufacturers contribute to the cost of remediating their dangerous cladding products.”

Basic failures

It says there are still some very basic issues that need addressing, such as getting full and final figures for the number of affected buildings, how long it will take to deal with them all and how much it will cost.

It is also recommending new legislation to speed up the remediation process, an action plan for the training of more experts, more support for affected owners and measures to tackle the cripplingly high insurance costs homeowners are facing until work is completed.

The current situation is untenable and is causing many flat sales to stall.”

Henry Griffith, Policy Officer at Propertymark, the UK’s professional body for estate and letting agents, comments: “The Public Accounts Committee report on the remediation of dangerous cladding confirms exactly what Propertymark has said about the lack of progress to remediate unsafe cladding.

“The current situation is untenable and is causing many flat sales to stall. We welcome many of the recommendations for the Ministry of Housing, including a review of insurance rates, reducing costs for leaseholders and reporting on its efforts to accelerate cladding.

“We hope UK Government Ministers urgently consider the recommendations laid out in the report, which would be welcomed by our agent members and by leaseholders.”

Steven Truman, Director, Cladding Consulting, comments: “One way the Government could bring immediate relief is to underwrite insurance for fire, similar to what was done with terrorism insurance following the Broadgate bombing in 1993.

“This would instantly reduce insurance costs to leaseholders and bring some much-needed relief whilst the longer-term issue of resolving the cladding crisis is dealt with.”