Since the Grenfell disaster of 2017, there has been some confusion about who should bear liability for the cost of removing and replacing this type of cladding on other high-rise buildings.
It is official policy that combustible materials should not be used in or on external walls or in any attachments to those walls and the Government has committed to removing aluminium cladding material (ACM) from privately owned blocks at a cost of £200 million to prevent the risk of fire. A review of building regulations and fire safety in England in 2018 said the regulations were “not fit for purpose” and called for a “radical rethink” of the system. The Fire Service has said that the report from the first phase of the Grenfell enquiry made it “clear that the fire risk presented by flammable cladding can only be removed when the cladding itself is completely removed”.
A recent dispute relating to the cladding at two blocks of flats in Manchester has now been resolved by the Courts which found in favour of leaseholders and freeholders who were suing their insurer to recover the costs of fire remediation work.
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