Cladding: Now builders told to meet ALL high-rise repair bills

MICHAEL Gove last night vowed to force developers to take responsibility for all building safety defects in a key victory for leaseholders.

The Housing Secretary said firms with ‘the big bucks’ would have to pay to fix fire safety defects that go beyond cladding.

In the four years since the Grenfell Tower fire, campaigners have repeatedly warned that government efforts to deal with dangerous cladding on residential buildings have failed to address related problems.

Many blocks affected by the scandal also have issues such as defective fire doors, flammable balconies and missing firebreaks.

Leaseholders have been landed with huge bills to cover costs of flaws that were not their fault.

Mr Gove’s announcement is a victory for the Daily Mail, which has led the way in calling on ministers to fix unsafe homes. Our End The Cladding Scandal campaign has demanded leaseholders are spared the crippling financial burden of repairs.

In the Commons yesterday, Mr Gove declared: ‘We will make industry pay to fix all of the remaining problems and help to cover the range of costs facing leaseholders.’

The Housing Secretary said the largest housing developers in the UK had made profits of £16billion in the last three years, and these ‘significant sums’ should be ‘devoted to ensuring the building safety crisis is met’. He added: ‘We will do everything possible in order to make sure we have responsibility discharged on those who are ultimately those with the balance sheets and big bucks.’

Mr Gove said the Building Safety Bill, which is currently going through Parliament, will be amended to prevent leaseholders being handed bills to remedy non-cladding issues.

But Mr Gove did not specify how exactly the safeguards will work, saying: ‘There’s a little bit of legal work to be done to ensure that they are as robust as possible.’

And in a significant U-turn yesterday, Mr Gove also said developers must agree to a £4billion plan to fix dangerous cladding on low-rise flats by early March or risk new laws forcing them to act.

In February, his predecessor Robert Jenrick unveiled a controversial scheme to replace dangerous cladding on buildings taller than 18m, using £5billion of taxpayer cash.

However, non-cladding problems were left out of the plan, and those in shorter buildings were to be left to pay for repairs via a loan scheme. Now, leaseholders in 11m-18m buildings will not have to take out loans.

Mr Gove said he had ‘an absolute assurance’ from Chancellor Rishi Sunak that he was ready to impose taxes if developers were not prepared to help pay to fix low-rise cladding.

‘Leaseholders are shouldering a desperately unfair burden,’ Mr Gove said. ‘They are blameless and it is morally wrong that they are the ones who should be asked to pay the price. We will set a higher expectation now that developers must fix their own buildings.’ Mr Gove said it had been an ‘injustice’ that leaseholders had been told they had ‘to pay money they don’t have to fix a problem they didn’t cause, all while the firms that made a profit on those developments sit on their hands’.

At the same time, he said, he was revising the safety rules with greater use of ‘sensible mitigations’ such as sprinklers and fire alarms in place of ‘unnecessary and costly’ remediation work.

The End Our Cladding Scandal group welcomed Mr Gove’s revised approach but said his talk needed to be backed by ‘tough action’.

Polly Neate, of charity Shelter, said: ‘More than four years on from the horrors of Grenfell, many people are still trapped in dangerous homes... Developers played a part in this cladding scandal so it’s only right they help to fix it.’

‘Shouldering an unfair burden’

IN a stunning victory for the Mail’s End the Cladding Scandal campaign, developers are at last being made to take financial responsibility for safety defects in their residential properties.

To the joy of leaseholders who are now spared the ruinous cost of funding the repairs themselves, Housing Secretary Michael Gove said the builders’ obligation would go beyond replacing faulty cladding.

They will also be forced to fix other issues, such as faulty safety doors, firebreaks and balconies made with flammable materials.

This burning injustice traumatised tens of thousands of homeowners. Let’s hope it has finally been put to rest.