The government has confirmed the next stage in attempts to solve the on-going cladding crisis.
The Ministry of Housing, Communities, and Local Government (MHCLG) is creating a dedicated Remediation Enforcement Unit within the Building Safety Regulator (BSR).
Parliamentary Under-Secretary at MHCLG, Alex Norris MP, announced the government plans in response to a written parliamentary question submitted by Will Forster, Liberal Democrat MP for Woking.
The Building Safety Regulator (BSR) takes action to ensure that applications that do not meet the regulatory standards of building safety are rejected.
“We understand that the introduction of the new regulatory regime initially resulted in a lot of poor quality and incomplete applications from industry,” said Mr Norris. “BSR continue to support applicants to meet the functional requirements of the building regulations.
“It is worth noting that the requirements in the regulations are not new and rejected applications contribute to the processing time of compliant applications.
“BSR officials are also working with MHCLG officials on setting up a dedicated Remediation Enforcement Unit within the Building Safety Regulator.
“The Remediation Enforcement Unit is designed to hold owners of ACM clad buildings to account, enforcing remediation where necessary, and will be essential to meet the government’s priority for remediation of unsafe Higher-Risk-Buildings (HRBs).
“We are considering further options to ensure compliance with the building safety regulations as part of the ongoing spending review.
The Building Safety Act 2022 also requires that within five years of the Act coming into force, the Secretary of State appoint an independent person to carry out a review. This includes reviewing the effectiveness of the regulator, and provisions made by or under the Building Act 1984 such as the dutyholder duties and enforcement measures.
