Buildings: Safety

(asked on 28th April 2020) - View Source

Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:

To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, what steps his Department will take to engage with tenants and leaseholders on the (a) scope and (b) delivery of the new Building Safety Fund.


Answered by
Christopher Pincher Portrait
Christopher Pincher
This question was answered on 11th May 2020

Leaseholder and tenant safety is at the core of the Governments work on building safety. We have been in regular contact with tenants and leaseholders and/or organisations representing them about unsafe non-Aluminium Composite Material (ACM) cladding in high-rise residential buildings. These exchanges contributed to the announcement in the Budget of the £1 billion Building Safety Fund. This included a roundtable between leaseholders and the Secretary of State shortly before the announcement of the Building Safety Fund where he heard directly the issues they face and engagement will continue as the work on the Fund develops.

The Fund will support the removal and replacement of unsafe non- ACM cladding in high-rise residential buildings and will therefore benefit leaseholders and tenants in those buildings. However, it is the responsible entity for the building, such as an eligible building freeholder or management company, who will need to register for the Fund when it opens and leaseholders or tenants should contact their responsible entity about their specific building and registering. The Government has also allocated additional funding to Leasehold Advisory Service (LEASE) to provide independent, free, initial advice to leaseholders on building safety issues to ensure they are aware of their rights and are supported to understand the terms of their leases. LEASE will act as the point of contact for leaseholders with questions about the fund when it opens.

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