Building Safety Fund: building forced to suspend cladding remediation work twice after government withholds new cash

Under the deal, the block would receive 80% of the total amount at the start of the project, and then when the project was half-completed it would receive an additional 15% of the total amount. The remaining 5% would be given when work was completed.

However, administrative delays at the GLA meant that the directors could not draw down all of the money needed initially, and in July they had to suspend the work for the first time.

After negotiations with the GLA, it was agreed that the project must continue, with the next tranche of funding then being released and work resuming.

In November the project was half-completed, and the directors requested the next tranche of funding that should have provided them with enough cash to finish the project. 

However, despite repeated attempts to get the GLA to release the money, the new funding has still yet to be received for the project. Instead, directors have had to use the leaseholder sinking fund and part of this years’ service charge payment to pay for the work until it received funding.

The project is now 90% complete but because the block has run out of money, it was forced to suspend the works for a second time last week, with the suspension costing £10,000 a week.

Peter Tolson, one of the resident directors at Icona Point, said: “We are out of money for the second time, have depleted our reserve fund and are using this year’s service charge collections to pay contractors because it was so important to us to not to stop work again.

“Something else needs to happen because this process is struggling; the bottleneck process has buckled.

“Work slows, costs increase, for both the fund and leaseholders, and there is nothing that we can do.”

In a desperate bid to try to push through the next tranche of funding, Mr Tolson has written to Mr Gove directly, asking for help and outlining how the suspensions are wasting public money.

The letter says: “There is no excuse, no reasonable explanation, no aligned understanding. If there is another fire in our block that causes injury due to an unnecessary spread that would not have been the case if we had not suspended the works, the consequence is not on my shoulders.”

Last year there was a fire at the apartment block following an electrical fault, which ripped through part of the block that had already been remediated. Nobody was injured.

The rate of remediation through the government’s Building Safety Fund has stuttered since it was launched in July 2020. An estimated 1,088 buildings have been given approval for full funding, with 199 having started work funded by the Building Safety Fund. Of these, work has completed on only 19 blocks.

A DLUHC spokesperson said: “People living in high-rise flats must feel safe in their homes and we are taking action to accelerate the work of the Building Safety Fund.

“Building owners are responsible for making their buildings safe – the government has provided over £5bn to support them and remove unsafe cladding in high-rise blocks.

“We are working with the owners of the Icona building to progress their application as quickly as possible.”