ARMA Welcomes the Recovery Potential of the "Polluter Pays' Provision as an Amendment to the Building Safety Bill

Posted by The Property Institute on 18th August 2021 -

The team at the PolluterPaysBill is seeking to convince the Government to add the Polluter Pays Redress Scheme into the Building Safety Bill, based on the provisions of the Environment Protection Act 1990 as amended, to establish a statutory framework for the recovery of direct and indirect remediation costs from responsible parties where a building is found not to have been constructed in accordance with building regulations in force at the time of construction.

Dr Nigel Glen, CEO of the Association of Residential Managing Agents (ARMA), has welcomed the recovery potential of the ‘Polluter Pays’ provision as an amendment to the current Building Safety Bill, and commented: 

“The proposal put forward to ensure that the responsible parties pay for cladding remediation and building safety work has been the stance of ARMA since the very start of this current crisis – we have long campaigned and asked Government to protect leaseholders from these crippling costs by immediately forward-funding all necessary remediation work required to make affected buildings and their residents safe as soon as possible. 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.

“Adopting the Polluter Pays amendment will remove the current requirement in the Building Safety Bill for building owners and managing agents to pursue all reasonable avenues for costs, as well as the option for leaseholders to take what will likely be costly legal action against developers, and replaces it with a more practical scheme, where Government funds the work and recovers any costs from liable parties  - whether regulatory failure, developers, contractors, manufacturers, or warranty providers, for example – after the work has been completed. 

“Managing agents have shown extraordinary dedication to their residents, working tirelessly to expand their resources, and investing in supporting affected leaseholders in the last few years, so we are genuinely supportive of a remediation process that is proportionate, and entirely funded and delivered by Government."

Steve Day, a Campaigner in the ‘PolluterPaysBill’ and ‘Building Safety Crisis’ teams said: “We are grateful to ARMA for supporting this amendment to remove the burden of remediating defective buildings from leaseholders and to provide the right incentives to developers and others to ensure that their buildings are safe. We urge the government to bring forward the “polluter pays” provisions as a government amendment to the Building Safety Bill when Parliament returns in September. “

To find out more about the Polluter Pays Bill, click here.

To hear the Polluter Pays Bill discussed on BBC Radio 4, click here.

To visit the Polluter Pays Bill' Twitter account, click here.