Last modified on Wed 10 Feb 2021 02.11 EST
Ministers are poised to announce billions of pounds in extra support to address the cladding crisis that has left homeowners bankrupt and distraught, though key questions remain over how much leaseholders will be expected to contribute.
Robert Jenrick, the communities secretary, will announce the new measures in parliament on Wednesday after reaching a deal with the Treasury, the Guardian understands.
Ministers will be under intense pressure, including from Conservative MPs, to stop hundreds of thousands of flat owners being forced to pay vast sums to replace flammable cladding.
The measures follow more than three years of uncertainty since the fallout of the 2017 Grenfell Tower disaster, which exposed the dangerous defects in thousands of apartment blocks, and the ensuing building safety crisis rendering homes unsellable, unmortgageable and uninsurable.
Grenfell fire tragedy casting a long, expensive shadow
Updated / Thursday, 28 Jan 2021
20:27
London Correspondent
The Grenfell Tower fire in London claimed the lives of 72 people in June, 2017. But the longer term fallout from the fire safety issues raised by the tragedy is blighting the lives of up to four million people in Britain.
Not only are they living in buildings with fire safety risks, but they are finding themselves saddled with large bills to pay for fixing problems of external cladding, insulation, firebreaks, alarms and sprinkler systems, as well as rapidly rising insurance bills.
Increasingly, they find themselves unable to sell their properties, as banks and other mortgage companies will not finance apartment sales without hard-to-get proof of fire safety compliance.
The threat to gag families demanding government help to fix homes rendered almost worthless by the Grenfell disaster has been lifted by House Secretary Robert Jenrick.
He pledged that no one would be punished for speaking out about safety failings which have trapped them in flats they cannot sell.
Mr Jenrick acted after being told by the Daily Mail that leaseholders hit by the cladding scandal were now terrified of talking openly about their ordeal.
The threat to gag families demanding government help to fix homes rendered almost worthless by the Grenfell disaster has been lifted by House Secretary Robert Jenrick, pictured above
FIREFIGHTERS’ union FBU has condemned an attempt by the government to stop flat owners from speaking to the press over dangerous cladding without its approval.
Even where there is “overwhelming public interest” in speaking to journalists, building owners or leaseholders applying for a fund to help remove flammable cladding must inform the government first, according to a draft agreement for the funding revealed by the Sunday Times.
The government set up a £1.6 billion fund last year to repair dangerous buildings, but also warned that it might not cover all the costs of removal.
Today, the FBU tweeted: “At every stage of the UK’s building safety crisis, the government has sought to ignore or delay dealing with matters of life and death.