A report from the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities (DLUHC) has found that the cost of remediating unsafe cladding in mid-rise buildings could reach up to £5.3 billion.
There are between 74,000 – 82,000 mid-rise residential buildings in England. It is estimated that between 6,220 and 8,890 of the buildings require remediation, partial remediation or mitigation, with a population of 71,000 – 79,000 in England.
This translates to 7-9% of such buildings needing work due to external wall system life-safety fire risks. A further 1% are estimated to require partial remediation and 0.5-1% are estimated to require mitigation measures to alleviate life-safety fire risks.
In total, 97,000 – 138,000 leasehold dwellings in mid-rise residential buildings require work. The overall cost of the remediation work is estimated to be between £3.1 billion and £5.3 billion.
Indeed, the mean cost per building of external wall system remediation is estimated to be between £640,000 and £790,000.
With 97,000 – 138,000 dwellings requiring work, between 22,000 – 32,000 are in the social sector, with the cost estimated to be between £700m and £1.2bn. The cost to remediate the 75,000 – 106,000 dwellings in the private sector is said to be between £2.4bn and £4.1bn.
Of the 2,000 – 3,000 non-dwelling residential mid-rise buildings (hotels, student accommodation, sheltered accommodation), 8 – 12% (190 – 330 buildings) are estimated to require work to alleviate external wall system life-safety fire risks.
The height of a building also impacts the likelihood that it will require remediation work. Of the mid-rise residential buildings containing dwellings that require work, 55% are 11 – 13m buildings and 45% are 14 – 18m buildings. 14 – 18m buildings have a greater proportion of buildings that require work (15 – 19%) than the 11-13m building stock (7 – 8%). There are similar numbers of 11 – 13m buildings and 14-18m buildings requiring work to alleviate life-safety fire risks, given the larger population of 11 – 13m buildings; 3,430 – 4,900 11-13m buildings and 2,790 – 3,980 14 – 18m buildings.
It also seems that a greater proportion of buildings outside London require remediation work. Half of mid-rise dwelling buildings that require work are located outside of London, despite mid-rise buildings outside of London making up 36% of the mid-rise stock of England.
