Cladding Targets Unrealistic and “Meaningless”, says Façade Distributor

THE GOVERNMENT’S latest remediation targets are being termed ‘unrealistic’ by the UK’s largest distributor of cladding products.

Chronic shortages of skilled labour and materials render government targets ‘meaningless’, says Peter Johnson, Chair of Vivalda Group plc.

While the aims of the Accelerated Remediation Plan are welcomed – to complete work on tower blocks over 18m high by 2029 – Peter Johnson is worried that a lack of skilled cladding installers and building safety inspectors will significantly hamper progress.

Cladding Targets Unrealistic

Peter welcomed the government’s promise to publish a pipeline of remediation projects to promote confidence within the industry. However, he was less convinced by the latest policy paper’s approach to addressing the skills gap. He said: “The Construction Industry Training Board (CITB) estimates that the UK will need an extra 225,000 workers from 2023–2027, and a significant proportion of these must be involved in cladding.

“The government’s only strategy to address this huge gap involves granting overseas workers with the right qualifications visas to work in England. While this might fill a few hundred vacancies at best, I was hoping to see a more meaningful initiative to encourage unemployed workers already in the UK to take up a career in construction.”

Approved Building Inspectors

Johnson also voiced concerns over the number of approved building inspectors available to carry out this important work. He said: “Earlier this year, Lorna Stimpson, chief executive of Local Authority Building Control, wrote to the government to warn that a “significant number” of local authorities will be unable to undertake building control services from April unless a deadline to register and achieve certification was extended. We’ve not heard much about this since, then, but I fear that this structural issue has not been solved in just a few months.”

To fill the gap in on-site skills, Peter Johnson added that off-site fabrication could play a major role in creating a more efficient remediation supply chain. He said: “It makes sense that we should be making cladding remediation as simple as possible, while not compromising quality or safety.

“We operate from 11 UK locations, providing precise CNC cutting, drilling and fixing of brackets to boards which can then be installed on a building straight off the lorry. We think wider uptake of this proven, more innovative approach to remediation will play a big part in speeding up the process.”

Seven years on from Grenfell, of the 4,834 buildings 11 metres and over in England that have been identified with unsafe cladding, work has been completed on only 1,436.

Current estimates suggest that there are between 4,000 and 7,000 buildings in England with unsafe cladding still to be identified.

>> Read more about cladding in the news