Letter to Government with a solution to end the Building Safety Crisis
Announcement update as at 15th June 2021

We are now targeting this letter to the UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson and Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government Robert Jenrick MP, with the intention of fitting this bill within the recently introduced Building Safety Bill. More information can be found at https://twitter.com/polluterpaysbsb.

The concept of the bill remains unchanged, if unfortunately you no longer wish your name to be on this letter, please do email us at info@buildingsafetycrisis.org.

Dear Mr Jenrick,

We are writing to you to urge you to add the Polluter Pays scheme into the Building Safety Bill as a matter of urgency. There are bankruptcies happening now and an arrears bubble about to pop. There is an estimated combined bill of £15bn for Fire safety repairs. We urgently need to recover this money from those responsible for defective buildings.

A key point to note is even if the design of building work may be compliant, often the installations are not. From 110 developments surveyed online, 60% stated they are in receipt of professional reports stating non compliance with building regulations in force at time of construction. There is a vast amount of money to be recovered, and it would also ensure the construction industry sticks to regulations going forward to avoid the full remediation bill for any non compliance.

The scheme is supported by the Earl of Lytton, 14 cross party back bench MPs and 3 Lord Bishops; all of whom believe this full redress solution presents a credible way, based on existing legislation to recover funds from the widest pool of those responsible for breaches of building regulations in force at the time of construction.

We really believe this is a key to unlock the Building Safety Crisis. With more money on the table, you can reassign the public funds to buildings that were built correctly, are now deemed unsafe and orphan liabilities. If this scheme were included in the Building Safety Bill it would push full redress into this landmark bill. In the light of the horrors of the Grenfell Inquiry this would be much welcomed. There would be severe consequences of not taking this action; Government would have to significantly increase the urgent commitment of additional taxpayer funds to remediate defective buildings, or go after leaseholders for it. This is a clear way based on existing legislation to prevent bankruptcy of 100s of thousands of innocent leaseholders whom the Prime Minister has vowed to protect.

Please add this vital scheme to the Building Safety Bill - the purpose must be to apply the Polluter Pays principles to all cases of non compliant cladding and non compliant Fire safety measures.
If it's been done for contaminated land, it can be applied to defective buildings. Don't let them get away with it.

Yours sincerely,
The UK public, Leaseholders and Friends&Family of the Building Safety Crisis

www.buildingsafetycrisis.org

Don't know your constituency or MP? Don't worry - use this to find out https://members.parliament.uk/FindYourMP


Letter as at 21st May 2021

Dear Dr Fox,

DEFECTIVE PREMISES (LIABILITY) BILL- "POLLUTER PAYS"
We write to you to request your help in entering a private member’s bill using your position 4 in the ballot.
As residents affected by the Building Safety Crisis, we are living in homes that are unsafe, stuck and unable to move on, facing life-changing bills and potential bankruptcy. Our mental health, including that of our children, is severely impacted. This mental health crisis has resulted in two unfortunate suicides of which we are aware.
During the Fire Safety Bill debates, you hoped your amendment would be allowed a vote, because it targeted the appropriate responsible persons to make the safety issues right. We agree. Your amendment is well written and would target most problems that many leaseholders face. Many people are already receiving eye-watering bills and being pushed to bankruptcy through no fault of their own.
We may not all be residents of your constituency, but we would urge you to use your position to introduce the RAQ residents led bill to protect all leaseholders from this injustice.

A BRIEF SUMMARY OF THE "POLLUTER PAYS" BILL
A bill to impose and apportion liability for remediation and related costs in respect of certain buildings built in breach of building regulations; and for connected purposes.
1. MHCLG stated £15 Billion is required for the remediation of external wall systems. However only £5 billion is on the table. The developers are trying to CAP their liability at £2 billion over the next ten years.
2. There is clearly a shortfall between the money coming in from the developers/tax payer/leaseholders and the £15 Billion estimated total cost. The Polluter Pays Bill aims to get more money in from a wider pool of responsible parties to avoid leaseholder loans/tax payer funds being used. It also means if the costs go up, there will be more money on the table to deal with the increase.
3. The Bill uses the same approach as in place for the handling of Contaminated Land to a) Determine if a building broke building regulations in force at the time of construction b) Apportion liability to those responsible.
4. Public funds can then be used for buildings where no responsible parties can be found and where buildings were compliant but deemed unsafe now because regulations changed.
5. With more money on the table from outside the treasury, we hope to push the government to act to resolve the building safety crisis without the need for leaseholder loans and to remove the worry and danger from people’s lives. We hope with a substantial redress solution in place, government will take on the costs of the non-cladding remediation and the waking watch/insurance increases as well as the cladding costs and recover from those responsible.
6. The Private Members Bill concept won the backing of 14 backbench MPs and was tabled in the House of Lords by the Bishop of Manchester supported by the Bishops of Kensington, London and St Albans along with the Earl of Lytton ( a peer and a chartered surveyor). It will also be drafted by parliamentary counsel to ensure the government could take over the bill if it chose to.

Please see Figure 1 to see how this bill works.

 
A website regarding the building safety crisis is currently under development at https://www.buildingsafetycrisis.org. This is a point of contact we would like to use in support of the “Polluter Pays” bill, should you decide to put it forward, and we hope you will be able to write something about the bill for this site.

Yours sincerely,
Leaseholders and Friends&Family of the Building Safety Crisis


PRIVACY POLICY
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Data removal: Email us at info@buildingsafetycrisis.org with the name, constituency and MP that you wish to delete data for and we will remove your survey answer. Note that once the open letter is built details cannot be removed.
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Figure 1 - explanation of how the "Polluter Pays" Bill works
An appeal from Leaseholders
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