Latest news with #BuildingSafetyLevy
Yahoo
10 hours ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Up to £3bn may be needed to fix building cladding
Up to £3bn of public money may have to be spent assessing and removing potentially flammable cladding from buildings in Scotland. New estimates from the Scottish government suggest up to 1,450 residential buildings may need remediation work, including about 250 high-rises. It was previously estimated about 900 buildings were affected. However, full surveys will be needed to establish what needs to be done on a case-by-case basis, with 107 buildings being examined as part of a pilot phase. It is now estimated that the Cladding Remediation Programme could cost £1.7bn to £3.1bn over a 15-year period. If new legislation is passed by the Scottish Parliament, additional funding could be unlocked to fix building safety issues. Ministers making 'painfully slow' cladding progress Scottish ministers given new powers to tackle cladding The Building Safety Levy (Scotland) Bill will see a tax charged on the construction of certain new residential properties, in line with equivalent legislation in England. The bill seeks to raise about £30m a year to help fund work to fix residential buildings with unsafe cladding which have no linked developer. Public Finance Minister Ivan McKee said: "The Scottish government is committed to doing what is right and necessary to address the challenge of fixing buildings affected by unsafe cladding. "That includes putting the appropriate funding arrangements in place to ensure that the associated costs of cladding remediation do not fall directly onto affected homeowners. "I know that developers share our determination to keep people safe and this levy will ensure they make a fair contribution to these costs, just as they will be doing in England." He added: "I also welcome the continued co-operation of developers who have accepted responsibility for the assessments and any required mitigation and remediation of their buildings." Trade body Homes for Scotland, whose members deliver the vast majority of all new homes in Scotland, said they were committed to remedial action on buildings they had built. But a spokesperson raised concerns about the impact of a building safety levy. "In addition to the proposed Building Safety Levy, Scotland's largest home builders are already contributing to the remediation of other impacted buildings through their payment of the Residential Property Development Tax (RPDT)," they said. The spokesperson said the proposed levy would mean an additional layer of taxation which "will add thousands of pounds to the cost of new homes, pushing families, first-time buyers and future generations further away from home ownership". They added: "At a time when Scotland is facing a housing emergency and 693,000 Scottish households are living in some form of housing need, this is simply unacceptable." The UK government agreed in principle to devolve the powers needed for a Scottish Building Safety Levy last year. Last month ministers announced plans to speed up efforts to inspect and repair buildings in response to the 2017 Grenfell Tower fire in London that killed 72 people. The 23-storey tower's cladding is believed to have contributed to the rapid spread of the fire. It broke out in the kitchen of a fourth-floor flat at the tower block in North Kensington, just before 01:00 on 14 June 2017. Within minutes, the fire had rapidly spread up the exterior of the building and moved across all four sides. By 03:00, most of the upper floors were well alight. As well as those killed, more than 70 people were injured. The Cladding Remediation Programme was set up in the aftermath of the disaster but Scottish ministers have been criticised for its slow progress. How are the laws on cladding changing in Scotland? 'No warning' over cladding evacuation, couple say
BBC News
13 hours ago
- Business
- BBC News
Building cladding: Up to £3bn could be spent in Scotland
Up to £3bn of public money may have to be spent assessing and removing potentially flammable cladding from buildings in estimates from the Scottish government suggest up to 1,450 residential buildings may need remediation work, including about 250 high-rises. It was previously estimated about 900 buildings were full surveys will be needed to establish what needs to be done on a case-by-case basis, with 107 buildings being examined as part of a pilot phase. It is now estimated that the Cladding Remediation Programme could cost £1.7bn to £3.1bn over a 15-year new legislation is passed by the Scottish Parliament, additional funding could be unlocked to fix building safety issues. The Building Safety Levy (Scotland) Bill will see a tax charged on the construction of certain new residential properties, in line with equivalent legislation in bill seeks to raise about £30m a year to help fund work to fix residential buildings with unsafe cladding which have no linked Finance Minister Ivan McKee said: "The Scottish government is committed to doing what is right and necessary to address the challenge of fixing buildings affected by unsafe cladding."That includes putting the appropriate funding arrangements in place to ensure that the associated costs of cladding remediation do not fall directly onto affected homeowners."I know that developers share our determination to keep people safe and this levy will ensure they make a fair contribution to these costs, just as they will be doing in England."He added: "I also welcome the continued co-operation of developers who have accepted responsibility for the assessments and any required mitigation and remediation of their buildings." Grenfell Tower fire The UK government agreed in principle to devolve the powers needed for a Scottish Building Safety Levy last month ministers announced plans to speed up efforts to inspect and repair buildings in response to the 2017 Grenfell Tower fire in London that killed 72 23-storey tower's cladding is believed to have contributed to the rapid spread of the broke out in the kitchen of a fourth-floor flat at the tower block in North Kensington, just before 01:00 on 14 June minutes, the fire had rapidly spread up the exterior of the building and moved across all four sides. By 03:00, most of the upper floors were well well as those killed, more than 70 people were Cladding Remediation Programme was set up in the aftermath of the disaster but Scottish ministers have been criticised for its slow progress.
BBC News
02-05-2025
- Business
- BBC News
House building costs highest in London - Centre for London finds
The cost of building homes in London is more than in other parts of England, think tank analysis has Centre for London reported the upfront cost of constructing 88,000 new homes a year, the government's annual target for the capital, is roughly 43 times higher than the equivalent target in the West research was shared at the centre's 2025 housing summit on Wednesday, where Sem Moema, chair of the London Assembly housing committee, said: "If we don't fix the housing crisis, the character of the city will be extinguished."A Mayor of London spokesperson said: "The mayor will continue to work in partnership with the government to deliver more genuinely affordable homes." 'Closing schools' Separate polling by the think tank, which is politically independent, found 60% of Londoners surveyed had considered moving out of the capital due to housing costs rising over the past 12 months, the Local Democracy Reporting Service (LDRS) Moema, a Labour member representing Hackney, Islington and Waltham Forest at City Hall, said: "I see in my own constituency the hollowing out that occurs and continues to occur, when the failure to fix the housing crisis for a decade and a half changes the character of our city, and not for the better."In all three boroughs, we're being forced to consider closing schools, because there are basically no children left in northeast London. "Families can no longer afford to own or even rent properties in my boroughs."Centre for London's research found the crisis is being exacerbated by the upfront cost to developers being at least £2.2bn, if they built enough homes to hit the government's target in the estimate was produced by combining the costs associated with the Building Safety Levy, Section 106 agreements, the Community Infrastructure Levy and planning fees for local councils, according to the analysis. The figure in the West Midlands metropolitan county – which includes Birmingham – was only £50.6m, and only slightly higher in Greater Manchester at £61.3m. In the London borough of Wandsworth alone, which had the highest cost of any London council area, according to the LDRS, the estimate was £253.9m. 'Invest in capital' Ms Moema said: "We have a generation who will never get on to the property ladder independently."We need to confront this reality. As with climate change, the costs of not doing anything will be greater than the costs of further investment."A spokesperson for the mayor said: "The mayor is working hard to turn things around, building on a strong track record of delivering tens of thousands of genuinely affordable homes across the capital and more new council homes than any time since the 1970s." 'Ambitious solutions' Commenting on the Labour government's approach to tackling the housing crisis, Centre for London CEO Antonia Jennings said: "We've seen increased investment in the Affordable Homes Programme, planning reform which allow building on low-quality sections of the green belt and the new Renters Reform Bill. "But, these are only the very first steps."She added: "We urgently need ambitious solutions that respond to the scale of the challenges facing the capital. "The government must get behind London's leaders and invest in the capital to finally turn the corner on the housing crisis." The Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG) has said meeting the housing challenge in London is a "crucial part" of its national mission to build 1.5m homes and kickstart economic government added that it had made "£200m available through the Brownfield Infrastructure and Land fund to strategic sites across the capital".Another £81m from the Housing Infrastructure Fund is also being given to Transport for London (TfL) to make improvements to Surrey Quays Station and "unlock more than 8,000 new homes in Southwark and Lewisham".
Evening Standard
30-04-2025
- Business
- Evening Standard
Staggering cost of meeting London's housing target revealed in new research
In its new research, the Centre for London found that the crisis is being exacerbated by the fact that the upfront cost to developers, if they built enough homes to hit the Government's target in the capital, would be at least £2.2bn. The estimate was produced by combining the costs associated with the Building Safety Levy, Section 106 agreements, the Community Infrastructure Levy and planning fees for local councils.
Yahoo
25-03-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Cladding tax on new homes delayed for a year
Ministers have delayed a tax to fund the removal of unsafe cladding from homes after developers warned it could hamper the government's housebuilding plans. The Ministry for Housing said on Monday the Building Safety Levy would be introduced from autumn 2026, rather than this year. The tax on new homes is expected to raise £3.4bn to be spent on building safety, including efforts to take down dangerous cladding. The delay comes after developers said the tax could increase building costs and result in the government missing its target to build 1.5 million homes by 2030. Housing Minister Matthew Pennycook told LBC the government was still committed to the tax and insisted the delay would not slow down the pace of improving building safety. "The previous government left us with an unpalatable inheritance in that respect," Pennycook said. "We've got to increase ther pace of works being done. Leaseholders are still trapped in these buildings." Neil Jefferson, chief executive of the Home Builders Federation, welcomed the delay as "recognition from government that these additional costs will inevitably constrain housing supply". But he suggested the "grossly unfair" tax on housing developers should be scrapped altogether. He said: "As proposed it will add thousands of pounds to the cost of new homes, threatening the viability of sites across swathes of the country at a time when industry is striving to reverse the decline in homebuilding numbers that we have seen in recent years." Cladding removal plan not ambitious enough, say MPs New deadlines set for fixing dangerous cladding The tax was first announced in 2021 by the then-Conservative government. Some of the money raised from the tax will go towards the removal of dangerous cladding from buildings, following the deadly fire at Grenfell Tower. Ministers have set aside £5.1bn to resolve the cladding crisis, expecting developers, building owners and social housing providers to pay the rest. Thousands of homes have been made safe, but as of December last year, work had yet to start on a quarter of the 1,323 tall buildings requiring attention. Up to 12,000 buildings and three million people could be affected. The lengthy process of identifying what work needs to be done and who should pay for it has left many residents living in fear of fires or with worries over costly repair bills. In its general election manifesto, Labour pledged to "take decisive action to improve building safety" and to "put a renewed focus on ensuring those responsible for the building safety crisis pay to put it right". Last year, Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner said the government was planning to introduce the Building Safety Levy in September this year. But in a letter to Rayner, dozens of developers said "the ability of the industry to invest in increasing the supply of new homes to meet the government's 1.5 million target is being threatened by the imposition of new taxes". Housebuilders say they are already paying £6.5bn towards improving building safety through corporation tax and argue makers of unsafe cladding should bear more of the costs. Home Builders Federation estimates the tax could add £1,580 to the cost of building a home and lead to the loss of about 70,000 affordable homes over 10 years. A Ministry for Housing, Communities and Local Government spokesperson said: "This government is determined to make Britain's homes safer by making developers pay their fair share to fix unsafe buildings through the Building Safety Levy. "We have extended the timeline to give developers more time to factor levy costs into their plans while continuing to support them to build safe homes, and at the same time we are continuing to work quickly to fix buildings with unsafe cladding through our Remediation Acceleration Plan."
