Housing developers now have until the end of March to come up with a “funding solution” to fix unsafe cladding after Michael Gove issued a final ultimatum.
The housing secretary had given developers until early March to come up with the £4bn funds to remove cladding on buildings between 11 and 18 metres in a bid to prevent leaseholders from facing bankruptcy or homelessness in paying for remediation.
But now he has extended the deadline until the end of the March with the warning that the government will create new legal powers to force developers to pay if they fail to come up with a plan.
In a letter to Home Builders Federation executive chairman Stewart Baseley, Gove said: “I am disappointed to see you have not proposed a funding solution to cover the full outstanding cost to remediate unsafe cladding on buildings 11-18m. I will therefore ask you to continue to work intensively with my officials in the coming weeks to agree a fully funded plan to fix unsafe buildings by the end of March. As part of this process, I expect developers to make public commitments.
“If an agreement is not reached by the end of March, I have been clear that government will impose a solution in law and have taken powers to impose this solution through the Building Safety Bill.”
The housing secretary said the “current proposal falls short of full and unconditional self-remediation that I and leaseholders will expect us to agree”.