{"id":826342,"date":"2025-02-12T07:11:38","date_gmt":"2025-02-12T13:11:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/2025\/02\/12\/new-unit-to-enforce-cladding-remediation\/"},"modified":"2025-02-12T07:11:38","modified_gmt":"2025-02-12T13:11:38","slug":"new-unit-to-enforce-cladding-remediation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/2025\/02\/12\/new-unit-to-enforce-cladding-remediation\/","title":{"rendered":"New unit to enforce cladding remediation"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\"Cladding-generic.jpg\"<\/p>\n

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The government is set to ramp up its post-Grenfell cladding replacement drive by creating a dedicated watchdog and enforcement unit.<\/p>\n

Building safety minister Alex Norris revealed that officials were keen to create a Remediation Enforcement Unit.<\/p>\n

Answering a written question in Parliament last Friday (7 February), he said this team would \u201chold owners of ACM-clad buildings to account\u201d.<\/p>\n

He said: \u201cBuilding Safety Regulator (BSR) officials are… working with Ministry for Housing, Communities and Local Government [MHCLG] officials on setting up a dedicated Remediation Enforcement Unit within the BSR.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Remediation Enforcement Unit is designed to hold owners of ACM-clad buildings to account, enforcing remediation where necessary, and will be essential to meet the government\u2019s priority for remediation of unsafe higher-risk buildings.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are considering further options to ensure compliance with the building safety regulations as part of the ongoing Spending Review.\u201d<\/p>\n

The results of the Spending Review are expected to be announced in late spring.<\/p>\n

The new standalone unit will focus on “an enhanced enforcement capability on 18m+ buildings”, an MHCLG spokesperson told Construction News<\/em>.<\/p>\n

“Working with local regulators they will support the work to administer, enforce and drive principal accountable persons to remediate high-risk buildings with combustible cladding (ACM and HPL).”<\/p>\n

The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) had acknowledged<\/a> \u201cteething troubles\u201d for the BSR, after it emerged the body had approved for construction just two out of 130 higher-risk building schemes<\/a> submitted by developers since the new gateway regime began.<\/p>\n

HSE chair Sarah Albon said on 5 February that \u201ca very large proportion\u201d of applications were \u201cfailing to demonstrate that they meet the new safety standards that are required\u201d.<\/p>\n

This \u201cundoubtedly causes concern and cost and delay\u201d, she told Parliament\u2019s Work and Pensions Committee.<\/p>\n

Norris told MPs last week: \u201cWe understand that the introduction of the new regulatory regime initially resulted in a lot of poor-quality and incomplete applications from industry.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe BSR continues to support\u202fapplicants to meet the functional requirements of the building regulations. It is worth noting that the requirements in the regulations are not new and rejected applications contribute to the processing time of compliant applications.\u201d<\/p>\n

In another written answer last Friday, Norris said the BSR had told applicants \u201cto currently plan on the basis of 20 weeks\u201d for gateway two approvals, \u201calthough we are seeing signs that this processing time is improving\u201d.<\/p>\n

He added: \u201cThis is compared to the service level agreement of 12 weeks for new-builds. We also understand there are specific applications which exceed current average processing timescales.\u201d<\/p>\n

Norris also told MPs that the government had invested \u00a316.5m in new local authority building control inspectors to support the BSR.<\/p>\n

\u201cWork to recruit and train these additional staff is well underway,” he said.<\/p>\n

But the British Property Federation called yesterday (10 February) for the government to allocate additional resources for the BSR.<\/p>\n

This would \u201creduce delays and enable projects to move forward\u201d, the industry body claimed.<\/p>\n

It added: \u201cThe backlog of applications going through the BSR is causing projects to either be delayed or abandoned altogether, running counter to the urgent need for new homes.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Read More<\/a>
\n Greg Pitcher<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The government is set to ramp up its post-Grenfell cladding replacement drive by creating a dedicated watchdog and enforcement unit. Building safety minister Alex Norris revealed that officials were keen to create a Remediation Enforcement Unit. Answering a written question in Parliament last Friday (7 February), he said this team would \u201chold owners of ACM-clad<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":826343,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[101729,33862],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-826342","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-cladding","8":"category-enforce"},"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/826342","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=826342"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/826342\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/826343"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=826342"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=826342"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=826342"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}