UK more than doubles cladding rectification spend
The UK, which led Australia in committing public funds to rectify combustible cladding on private residential buildings, more than doubled its planned spend as it set aside £1 billion ($1.98 billion) to remove and replace a wider range of facade materials also deemed combustible.
In Thursday’s national budget, newly appointed Chancellor of the Exchequer Rishi Sunak said the extra funding – on top of £600 million the government announced last year for the removal of combustible aluminium composite panels – would be spent as grant funding on residential buildings 18 metres and over with cladding materials including laminates and wood.
The June 2017 Grenfell Tower tragedy killed 72 people in London. Dame Judith Hackitt, who led the UK government inquiry into Britain’s Grenfell Tower fire, last year told The Australian Financial Review a similar tragedy was “entirely foreseeable” in Australia and criticised the “foolhardy” comments of politicians who said it could not happen here.
While the UK has more publicly owned and fewer privately owned apartment towers than Australia, the latest step by the British government – which led this country last year in announcing publicly funded rectification of ACP – showed Australian governments would also have to deepen their responses to the combustible cladding crisis, UNSW lecturer in construction Geoff Hanmer said.
“What the UK government is doing is common sense,” Mr Hanmer said on Thursday.
“I think it just reinforces the fact that we are well behind in this. Victoria is the only state that has taken decisive action and it’s to the tune of $600 million, which everyone has agreed is not enough.”
Get a weekly roundup of the latest news from Commercial Real Estate, delivered straight to your inbox!
