THE Scottish Parliament has unanimously approved legislation giving Scottish ministers powers to assess and remediate buildings which have unsafe cladding, where consent of the owners cannot be provided.
The Housing (Cladding Remediation) (Scotland) Bill will allow for the creation of a Cladding Assurance Register, designed to give homeowners and residents confidence in the assessment and remediation works undertaken on their buildings.
Ministers will also have powers to establish a Responsible Developers Scheme to support engagement with developers and encourage them to pay for or carry out remediation work.
Housing minister Paul McLennan said, “This is a landmark moment in our efforts to make buildings safer and to safeguard homeowners and residents in buildings identified through the remediation programme as having unsafe cladding. The unanimous passing of this legislation will allow us to accelerate our work by addressing barriers to assessment and remediation and give homeowners and residents confidence in work carried out.
“The public commitments already made by many of Scotland’s developers to identify, assess and remediate their buildings mean public money can be focused on buildings without a linked developer.”
