Political and Wider Support
1) National Residential Landlords Association
“A key change that the NRLA is seeking to achieve concerns building safety. The Earl of Lytton has re-tabled his amendment to introduce a Building Safety Remediation Scheme which would ensure that building safety failures are fixed, irrespective of a building’s ownership or height.
The scheme would overcome the shortcomings of the Building Safety Act (and mitigate the issues linked to any ground ban) to fix historic safety defects via grants funded either by the developer responsible for the building works or through a levy on the construction industry where the developer is dissolved or insolvent.“
Full article here: https://www.nrla.org.uk/news/here-today-not-to-stay-copy
2) Former Chief Executive of the CIOB Mr Blythe
“If this amendment went through it would change the culture of the construction and property industry in the UK and set a precedent for the rest of the world. Time for the UK to do the right thing and lead the world.”
3) Former State Premier of Victoria, Australia and Co-Chair of Cladding Taskforce Mr Baillieu
“This amendment’s going to cover off everything – not just cladding but all defects and all other costs and establish a principle that if you don’t build according to the regulations, it doesn’t matter how long ago you did it, you’ll have to pay to fix it. If that happened, that’s a massive cultural change worldwide… … We urgent every Member of the British Parliament to get behind the only comprehensive and equitable solution – the Polluter Pays amendments being advanced by the Earl of Lytton.”
4) Property Mark
“Current UK Government policy does not go far enough to support leaseholder protections which limits leaseholders by the size of buildings and the property that they own. Fundamentally, individuals who are not responsible for making buildings unsafe should not be charged with remediation costs. Proposals for a Building Safety Remediation Scheme would help lead to greater confidence in the buying and selling of property in high-rise buildings. In order to ensure that impacted property can continue to be bought, sold and rented it is vital that we have a system that holds those directly responsible to account.”
https://www.propertymark.co.uk/resource/greater-support-needed-for-leaseholders.html
5) British Property Federation “We are strongly supportive of the amendment proposed by the Rt Hon Dr Liam Fox MP [Polluter Pays Amendment].. This is to protect individuals, avoid bankrupting companies, risking the ability of insurers and pension funds to meet their obligations, or seriously affecting charitable institutions.”
https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm5802/cmpublic/BuildingSafety/memo/BSB14.htm
6) The Sunday Times “The polluter pays scheme answers a key aim of a Sunday Times campaign to make those responsible pay for the building safety scandal — not innocent homeowners. If an amendment is added … it could be life-changing for the hundreds of thousands of leaseholders who have been trapped for the past four years.”
7) Association of Mortgage Intermediaries “This proposal to resolve the issues on funding the remediation of buildings with unsafe cladding would be a significant step forward to resolving the problems facing residents.”
8) Intermediary Mortgage Lenders Association “By shifting the balance and making developers front building remediation costs, we can hold those who failed to properly construct these dwellings to account, remove the cost burden currently unfairly placed on individual homeowners, and speed up the process of remedying unsafe homes…it would be a step in the right direction. Any initiative that helps to ease the immediate dilemma for borrowers and gives mortgage providers the reassurance to lend on safe properties, should be welcomed”
9) Association of Residential Managing Agents “Allowing the Government to identify those works and place the responsibility of remediation costs on those who failed to make the grade in terms of materials, workmanship, or construction standards – rather than on leaseholders – is a sensible and practical solution to the current crisis.”
10) Daniel Greenberg CB (Parliamentary Counsel and Parliamentary Standards Commissioner)
https://www.danielgreenberg.co.uk/building-safety-bill/
11) Grenfell Inquiry Construction Counsel Dr David Sawtell
Press, awards and backers:
Support from the Church to protect leaseholders from Building Safety Remediation Costs
Support from MPs, former Government Minister of State for Housing and Peers in Parliament: