Minister tells councils to "move further and faster against rogue building owners"

The Minister for Housing and Building Safety, Lee Rowley, has called a meeting of council chief executives to discuss action against building owners who fail to remediate medium and high-rise buildings with known safety issues.

The Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities said it had provided more than £8m to councils’ enforcement teams and Rowley said he wanted to know how this was being used. 

The money was allocated in November for local authorities to pursue freeholders who failed to begin repairs, the department said.

He called the meeting after successful legal action by the Government, various leaseholders and councils against building owners taken to make sure safety work is carried out. 

The Minister said: “Councils and fire and rescue services play a crucial role in making sure dangerous buildings get fixed when building owners are stalling.

“Lots of councils are already doing great work in this area but all councils need to take the appropriate action to protect residents and make sure those responsible for making homes safe do so without any further delay.”

In all five orders have been issued under the Building Safety Act to date, in which the First-tier Tribunal has ordered building owners to get on with fixing, or paying to fix, their unsafe buildings.  

Rowley said that where remediation was not progressing, building owners should expect to face robust enforcement action from regulators – including councils – with the full support of Government.

Under the Building Safety Act, all residential buildings rising above 11 metres in England must have unsafe cladding fixed, either through a taxpayer-funded scheme, a developer-funded scheme, or social housing provider led remediation protecting leaseholders from these costs. 

Since 2018, councils have taken enforcement action at nearly 300 high-rise buildings with unsafe cladding. 

It added that Government legal action against freeholders under the Building Safety Act to date will affect 915 residential dwellings and approximately 2,160 leaseholders.

Mark Smulian