- New £30million Waking Watch Relief Fund for fire alarms to
reduce costs for leaseholders forced to have a waking watch
- £1 billion Building Safety Fund deadlines extended to ensure
more eligible buildings can remove unsafe cladding
- Around 95% of buildings with dangerous ‘Grenfell type’ ACM
cladding to have completed remediation or have workers on site by
the end of the year
The government has today (17 December 2020) announced a £30
million fund to help end the scandal of excessive waking watch
costs, as part of a further move to support thousands of
residents in high-rise buildings.
The new Waking Watch Relief Fund will pay for the installation of
fire alarm systems in high-rise buildings with cladding, removing
or reducing the need for costly interim safety measures such as
‘waking watch’.
The National Fire Chiefs Council have been clear in recent
guidance that building owners should move to install common fire
alarm systems as quickly as possible to reduce or remove
dependence on waking watches.
The steps today will help worried leaseholders who may have faced
high costs for interim safety measures by providing financial
support and delivering a better, long term fire safety system in
their buildings.
Some buildings have already installed these systems due to the
significant savings this offers, with leaseholders in those
buildings, who on average were paying £137 per month for a waking
watch, expected to collectively save over £3 million per month.
The same research shows the wide range in costs faced by
leaseholders and evidence of disproportionate charges – the
Housing Secretary is writing to Trading Standards asking them to use
their powers to investigate.
The fund will open in January, but will also provide immediate,
emergency support to Wicker Riverside Apartments in Sheffield to
ensure that the 35 recently evacuated families should be able to
return to their homes before Christmas.
A 6-month extension to the deadline for building owners to
complete their applications to the £1 billion Building Safety Fund
has also been announced - with a new deadline for submissions of
30 June 2021.
This means hundreds more buildings will be remediated and
thousands of leasehold residents will be protected from costs.
Progress is being made on current applications with many more
expected to be agreed before Christmas.
Housing Secretary said:
I’ve heard first-hand from leaseholders the misery that rip-off
waking watch costs have been bringing to residents of high-rise
buildings with cladding.
I’m announcing today a £30m Waking Watch Relief Fund to help
relieve the financial pressure on those residents and to ensure
they are safe. I’m confident that this will make a real
difference to worried leaseholders up and down the country this
Christmas.
We have continued to prioritise the removal of unsafe ACM
cladding throughout the pandemic and expect around 95% of
remediation work will have been completed or be underway by the
end of this year.
National Fire Chiefs Council Chair, Roy Wilsher said:
We welcome this new Waking Watch Relief Fund, which will help
to reduce the financial burden for some leaseholders having to
fund the costs of waking watches.
It has been our firm and long held expectation that building
owners should move to install common fire alarms as quickly as
possible and this funding is a positive step.
Building Safety Minister said:
Our priority is making sure people are safer in their homes and
we are working tirelessly to make this happen.
The measures announced today build on our commitment, which
will be enshrined in law through our Building Safety Bill, to
improve the safety of buildings across the country.
Building owners are responsible for making sure that their
buildings, and the people who live in them, are safe. We
continue to actively pursue them to encourage swift action and
have supported this with £1.6 billion in government funding.
This builds on steps the government has already made to support
leaseholders including securing an agreement that owners of flats
in buildings without cladding do not need an EWS1 form to sell or
re-mortgage their property - benefitting nearly 450,000
homeowners.
These measures are part of the government’s commitment to improve
the safety of buildings across the country which will be
enshrined in law through the Building Safety Bill in 2021.
The government is clear the building industry must contribute
towards the costs of making these homes safe once more, to set
right decades of unsafe practices. Work continues at pace to
develop further financial solutions to protect leaseholders with
details to be announced in the new year.
See the latest data on remediation
View the latest figures on applications for the
Building Safety Fund
