The recent update includes a new joint plan, investment, and proposes setting a clear legal deadline for removing unsafe cladding in high-rise buildings
The Remediation Acceleration Plan update outlines the progress made on the three objectives of the overall plan, which was published at the end of last year. The three objectives are to fix buildings more quickly, identify all residential buildings with unsafe cladding exceeding 11 m, and support residents.
The update outlines plans to make it an offence for any person to obstruct another from assessing or remediating an unsafe building over 11 meters in height, without a reasonable excuse.
This means that by the end of 2029, any landlord who has failed to remediate a building over 18 metres in height without a reasonable excuse will face criminal prosecution, with unlimited fines and/or imprisonment.
The update proposes several plans to work towards the objectives
Fix buildings faster
- Give social landlords equal access to government remediation funding as private landlords, supported by a new joint plan between government, social landlords and regulators to speed up remediation, cutting years off the time to make social tenants safe and improving resident experience before, during and after remedial works.
- Bring forward a Remediation Bill to create a hard ‘endpoint’ for remediation. A Legal Duty to Remediate will compel landlords to remediate their buildings within fixed timescales or face criminal prosecution. Avoidance is not an option. Where landlords fail, new powers – including a Remediation Backstop – will ensure the work gets done. The Bill will be brought forward as soon as parliamentary time allows.
- Tighten fire assessment standards to minimise delays to remediation start dates and provide certainty on the scope of works.
- Support the delivery of Local Remediation Acceleration Plans (LRAPs) to enhance collaborative working and expertise at regional levels, further to the over £5 million in funding already provided to metro mayors.
- Establish a National Remediation System (NRS) to serve as the single source of data for all relevant buildings over 11 metres to enhance information sharing across partner organisations.
Find 11m+ residential buildings in need of cladding remediation:
- Reviewed over 212,000 Ordnance Survey records and, as part of a separate exercise, published updated prevalence information based on the latest available data, which reduces the estimated number of buildings requiring remediation that have not yet been brought into a remediation programme from 4,000 – 7,000 to 500 – 3,40,0 with 60% – 91% having already been identified.
- Advanced work to review further Ordnance Survey records and remain on track to identify the vast majority of relevant 11m+ buildings with potentially unsafe cladding by the end of the year.
- Identified buildings where further investigation is required and began engagement with responsible parties to review their fire risk assessments and either provide support to help them enter a programme or rule them out.
Support residents:
- Provide funding, on a strictly exceptional basis, to multi-occupied residential buildings under 11 metres where it is needed to address life-critical fire safety risks from cladding and there are no alternatives to fund the works.
- Bring forward legislation to ensure that regulators can enforce the remediation or mitigation of critical issues following a decant of a residential building of 11m+. This will ensure that decants are either averted, or residents can return to their homes as quickly as possible.
- Implement a long-term, sustainable approach to the Waking Watch Replacement Fund.
- Ensure that, even after remediation, social landlords who have signed the Joint Plan continue to allow shared owners to sublet their properties up to the market rent level where demonstrable efforts are being made to sell the property.
CIH comments on the Remediation Acceleration Plan update
Local Authorities and Homes England will also have new Remediation Backstop powers, meaning they will be able to apply to the First Tier Tribunal for permission to undertake remedial works themselves.
The landlord that owns the building will still be liable for any costs not normally covered by the government, and if not met by the landlord, an enforced sale may be the solution.
Gavin Smart, CIH chief executive, said: “We welcome the announcement of new funding, legislation and a joint plan to accelerate the removal of unsafe cladding. This is a vital step forward in delivering the safe, decent homes all residents deserve — and in strengthening trust and accountability across our housing system.
“This is a strong signal that government and the housing sector are jointly prioritising building safety and acting on lessons learned since Grenfell. We support the focus on clear timelines, stronger enforcement powers, and resident engagement — and we will be working with our members and partners to help implement the plan in practice.”
