London council orders removal of Grenfell-style cladding

Tower Hamlets Council has secured a remediation order against an unnamed building owner to remove aluminium composite material (ACM) cladding from a high-rise in Stepney, East London.

The council said it is the first local authority in the country to bring such legal action against a freeholder of a private building.

The remediation order requires the building owner to replace the ACM cladding, install new cavity barriers, and replace combustible insulation.

The Grenfell Inquiry found the use of ACM cladding was the “primary cause” of the rapid spread of the fire that killed 72 people in June 2017.

Tower Hamlets said officers are working on securing more remediation orders against freeholders of other high-rise buildings where progress has stalled

Tower Hamlets Council used powers available under the Housing Act 2004 and Building Safety Act 2022 to enforce the remediation works.

Remediation orders are made by the First-tier Tribunal under the Building Safety Act 2022. They require a landlord, developer or building owner to fix safety defects by a specified time.

Failure to action the works within the set time could result in the matter being enforced by the County Court, and punishable by an unlimited fine or prison sentence.

The first remediation order was issued in August 2023, when a group of leaseholders in a seven-storey building in southwest London successfully took action against their landlord over defective external cladding and other safety issues.

Executive mayor of Tower Hamlets, Lutfur Rahman, said: “I am proud of what we have achieved, and it is due to the hard work and dedication of officers. This is the first action of this kind, but it will not be the last.

“We are taking this approach with other private building owners who are failing to remove dangerous cladding from their buildings and we expect to secure more orders in the near future.”

The government launched last week a scheme to fix all unsafe high rises in government-funded schemes by the end of 2029.

The announcement followed a report by the National Audit Office which found that up to 60% of the 9,000-12,000 buildings with dangerous cladding in England have not yet been identified and remediation continues to be slow.

Lewis Couth, partner at Walker Morris, the law firm that represented Tower Hamlets in this case, said: “Securing this order is a further landmark case. Local authorities have had these powers for a couple of years but it’s the first time we’ve seen a local authority use them.

“If local authorities are struggling to get landlords to comply with safety regulations, then this recent Tower Hamlets decision shows that there is a solution to accelerating life-critical remedial works.”