Cladding fixes yet to begin on half of England’s at-risk buildings

Cladding remediation has yet to start on more than half of the buildings in England identified by the government as having potentially dangerous cladding – almost eight years after the Grenfell Tower tragedy.

Of the 5,052 buildings recorded as having dangerous cladding by the end of March 2025, 1,652 – or 33 per cent – have been remediated to completion, according to official statistics published this morning (22 May).

Buildings in the remediation programme are at least 11 metres in height and have been “identified with unsafe cladding”, according to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG).

Work is in progress on a further 825 buildings, meaning that remediation of 2,575 buildings – 51 per cent of the total – has not yet begun, the MHCLG said.

Grenfell Tower was fitted with aluminium composite material (ACM) – cladding that has been prioritised for replacement in the building safety remediation programme.

Of the 516 residential or public buildings in England that have ACM on them and are 18 metres or more in height, 454 have been remediated fully – 88 per cent of the total.

But work on 22 buildings with ACM has yet to start, according to the MHCLG. Of those, one is empty and 17 have start dates.

Applications for government-funded remediation via the Building Safety Fund (BSF) have been filed for 832 buildings that are more than 18 metres tall.

This total includes buildings with non-ACM cladding.

Of these BSF-funded remediation jobs, 137 are in progress and 407 (49 per cent) have been completed, the MHCLG said, although that total includes “those awaiting building control sign-off”.