The government has launched a pilot of its building safety scheme.
The pilot comes ahead of a wider roll-out next year, when it will be the biggest building safety scheme in operation anywhere in the world, funded by the £3bn building safety levy on housing developers.
Approximately 60 buildings across England, which have interim safety measures in place such as waking watches, will be invited to apply for the pilot from today.
The levy covers buildings between 11m and 18m tall where the developer cannot be traced or held responsible for remediation work, perhaps because they have gone out of business.
Proposals for the levy, which will fund the scheme, are currently out for consultation. It will run alongside pledges by 49 of the country’s biggest homebuilders, which have committed at least £2bn to fix life-critical fire-safety cladding defects in tall buildings they have had a hand in developing over the past 30 years.
Local government and building safety minister Lee Rowley said: “This is an important step forward for leaseholders who have been trapped in unsafe, unsellable homes with unfair costly repair bills for far too long. Building owners have the responsibility to get essential cladding repairs done and this scheme will help ensure this happens.”
Homes England will be running the pilot and ensuring that building owners or freeholders in targeted buildings get the help they need to assess and fix fire safety defects. There is also an opportunity for building owners in eligible medium-rise blocks to share their details ahead of the wider rollout to help them prepare and plan for the next phase of the scheme.
More details on eligibility and the application process for the full scheme will be announced next year.
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