Only a third (29%) of residential buildings with unsafe cladding in England have completed remediation, according to the latest government figures.
The monthly data from the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG) shows that, as of the end of July, just 2,299 (50%) of the 4,630 residential buildings 11m and over in height identified with unsafe cladding have either started or completed remediation works.
On Monday, a fire broke out in a residential block of flats in East London with known safety issues.
A total of 40 fire engines and around 225 firefighters tackled the blaze at the building in Dagenham, which was undergoing remedial works to replace non-compliant cladding.
ACM cladding
The MHCLG statistics also show that of the 499 high-rise (18m and over in height) residential and publicly owned buildings with aluminium composite material (ACM) cladding systems, 488 (98%) had either started or completed remediation works, an increase of one since the end of June.
Of these, 438 buildings (88%) had completed ACM remediation, including those awaiting Building Control sign-off, an increase of one since the end of June.
There are 11 buildings yet to start ACM remediation (2% of all buildings), a figure that hasn’t changed since the previous dataset was released. One building is vacant, seven occupied buildings have forecast start dates, two further buildings have had local authority enforcement action taken against them, and the remaining buildings came into scope in April 2024, when the Building Safety Act regime transition ended.
The Phase 1 report of the Grenfell Tower Inquiry found that ACM cladding panels had been the “primary cause” of the rapid spread of the fire in the Grenfell Tower on 14 June 2017. A total of 72 people were killed and the high-rise destroyed in one of the worst disasters in post-war Britain.
