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One in five Building Safety Fund applications approved
Just one in five applications to the government’s £1bn Building Safety Fund (BSF) have been approved for funding, with more than £226m of the pot allocated to buildings so far.
Official government figures show as of 5 March there were 2,820 total registrations to the fund in England, with just 624 (22%) of these being advanced to receive funding.
Chancellor Rishi Sunak announced the £1bn BSF in his March 2020 Budget, targeting buildings taller than 18m with non-aluminium composite material (ACM) cladding. The funding followed initial pots of £400m and £200m for remediation in social and private sectors respectively.
Of the 2,820 applications, 354 were deemed ‘ineligible’ and 238 were still having their eligibility being checked. A further 364 applications included some but not all evidence required, with the government warning that not all will be accepted.
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The data from the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government showed that 891 applications had “no basic information to assess whether they are eligible”.
London accounted for the majority of applications, with 1,628, compared with 1,192 in the rest of the country.
The top five local authorities that submitted applications to the BSF were:
- Tower Hamlets – 293
- Manchester – 144
- Newham – 138
- Westminster – 125
- Southwark – 121
Announcing the figures in a written statement last week, housing minister Christopher Pincher said: “The rate at which applications to the BSF are advanced will be dependent on the readiness of building owners to provide the required information.
“It is disappointing that almost 900 building owners – who are responsible for making sure their buildings are safe – have been unable to provide any of this basic information. We have engaged with registrants and industry bodies to understand the challenges they have in meeting our deadlines and criteria requirements.
“To address their concerns we have extended the deadlines for the fund to the end of June 2021, giving building owners more time to submit full applications but still reflecting the importance of these critical safety works.”
Housing secretary Robert Jenrick announced in February that the government was making a further £3.5bn available for cladding remediation on buildings taller than 18m while offering “low-cost” loans to leaseholders in buildings under that threshold.
