Following the successful conclusion of a pilot, the Government has introduced a new Cladding Safety Scheme (the "CSS") which is intended to provide access to funding to fix dangerous cladding to thousands of buildings across England which were previously excluded from benefiting from the Building Safety Fund (the "BSF"), launched in March 2020, which was only available for high rise residential buildings over 18 meters in height.

The CSS, which is a joint initiative between the Department for Levelling Up Homes and Communities and Homes England, provides funding for repairing life critical fire safety cladding defects to medium rise residential buildings (residential buildings over 11 meters in height) where no other sources of funding are available (for example, where the developer of the building has signed up to the Responsible Actor's Scheme - see here). 

The introduction of the CSS should facilitate urgent fire safety remedial works in tens of thousands of residential buildings in England and will be welcome news to the leaseholders and occupants of flats in medium rise residential buildings whose properties were unable to benefit from the BSF which meant that cladding safety defects went unremediated and resulted in justifiable anxiety to the occupants of the buildings and difficulties for the leaseholders in selling their properties.

Applications to the CSS can be made by the person responsible for the external repair of the building (e.g. freeholder, RTM or managing agent) and further guidance can be found here.

This post was written by Tom Weld and Elliot Hawes.