The government priority is still for homes higher than 18 metres.
Thousands of people living in blocks less than 18m tall are unable to sell their homes because banks will not offer mortgages to buyers until a qualified engineer has inspected the block’s cladding materials and given it a clean bill of health through an EWS1 form.
During Question Time in the House of Commons, the PM (14th October 20) said a “risk matrix” to help leaseholders was being drawn up to support mortgage valuation by The Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS)
At the same time, the National Fire Chiefs Council (NFCC) was also creating “a risk prioritisation” tool for these buildings.
Medium – 11-18 metres high homes
The government has started a “pilot” data collection project to assess the cladding types of close to 85,000 medium-rise buildings around England.
This follows a series of fires in lower blocks
This work will provide information on how local authorities, other building owners and external partners can work together to collect this data, and the resource implications for this. Development of this work, its scope and coverage is currently in design. Further details on this work will be provided in due course.
Building Safety Fund Update
The £1bn Building Safety fund was announced in March as part of chancellor Rishi Sunak’s Budget. Under the rules, only buildings above 18m could apply and building owners had to prove that the cladding materials are dangerous.
Money is distributed on a first come, first served basis at application stage.
Last week it was revealed by Inside Housing that 2,784 had registered, with only 447 of those blocks submitting correct information and only 65 of these blocks being deemed eligible so far.
The next round will be open until December and is exclusively for housing associations and councils