Scottish Government announces £20m to speed up dangerous cladding removal

The housing secretary has announced a further £20m to speed up action to remove dangerous cladding in Scotland.

Mairi McAllan announced the additional funding and expanded eligibility on Thursday, stating that social housing will now be eligible for remediation funding.

It comes after the Scottish Government has been repeatedly criticised by opposition parties over the pace of remediation work following the 2017 Grenfell Tower disaster in London, which killed 72 people.

“Scotland’s cladding remediation programme is progressing at pace and the additional £20m I’ve announced today will further expedite this vital work,” McAllan said.

“Ultimately I am determined that, by 2029, every high-risk residential building over 18 metres will have been resolved, with buildings between 11 and 18 metres placed on a clear pathway to resolution.”

The announcement follows criticism that Scotland’s removal of dangerous cladding is behind other parts of the UK.

Out of an estimated 1,450 buildings that may require work to remove cladding, just three have been fully assessed under the cladding remediation programme.

Only two buildings in the country currently have active remediation work being undertaken.

Another 12 single building assessments (SBA), which assess any risk to life caused by cladding, are currently under way.

The Scottish Liberal Democrats said the Government was moving at a “glacial pace”.

McAllan, who was given the newly created role in June, said the additional money will speed up actions to make Scotland’s buildings safe.

It will boost the Scottish Government’s single open call fund, which was launched in March.

The fund, which was launched in March, allows owners and residents to apply for an assessment to determine the work required to make buildings safe.

She also set a deadline of October 31, 2025, by which developers must sign the developers’ remediation contract, an agreement between the UK government and major developers, requiring them to fix life-critical fire safety defects in buildings they developed or refurbished over the past 30 years.

The Scottish Government said the fund has already made 258 initial grant funding offers for building owners and residents to take forward a single building assessment.

The £10m additional funding will ensure every eligible application received before the end of December will be progressed.