Department for Housing, Levelling Up & Communities (DHLUC) have published a data release, which estimates of the prevalence of cladding fire risk in mid-rise (11-18m) residential buildings in England.
This data release publishes estimates on the number and proportion of mid-rise buildings with external wall systems that are a life-safety fire risk, as well as the estimated costs as at July 2021 of fully or partially remediating, or mitigating affected mid-rise buildings.
DHLUC hired a contractor and an independent advisory panel to gather the estimates, which are based on a sample of mid-rise buildings in England, and involved desk-based assessments of life-safety external wall system fire safety risk.
The government have said that “this data release is an ad-hoc release, and does not constitute an Official Statistics or National Statistics release.”
The pilot study estimates between 7-9% of residential mid-rise buildings containing dwellings require cladding remediation, with a further 1% are estimated to require partial remediation, and 0.5-1% to require mitigation measures to alleviate life-safety fire risks. These percentages give rise to the estimate that there are between 6,220 and 8,890 affected buildings in England.
Of these affected buildings that contain dwellings, an estimated 83% have at least one external wall system composition type that requires full remediation. A further 8-12% of affected non-dwelling residential mid-rises (e.g. hotels, student accommodation) are also estimated to require remediation works.
The total costs to alleviate cladding risks for leaseholders in mid-rise residential buildings is currently estimated to be between £3.1 billion and £5.3 billion.
You can read the publication in full on the government’s website here.