The total cost of delivering building safety standards across the entire council housing stock is £8.1 billion over a 10-year period, a report by Savills reveals.
The LGA-commissioned research suggests that this figure would achieve full compliance with the highest possible standards, including the installation of sprinklers and compartmentation, with the majority of investment taking place in the first five years.
To achieve full compliance with current standards alone is estimated to be a total of £2 billion over the same period. These costs include the remediation of dangerous cladding.
The LGA is urging the Government to use the upcoming Spending Review to ensure that this full figure is available to local authorities so that council housing stock meets the highest possible standards of safety.
In addition, the LGA is concerned that social landlords face mounting costs arising from the Fire Safety Act and the Building Safety Bill, which government may not make allowance for in the Spending Review.
Cllr David Renard, the LGA’s Housing Spokesperson, said: “Councils want residents to be safe and to feel safe in their homes, ensuring social housing meets the new standards arising from the reform of building safety in the wake of the Grenfell Tower fire and the recommendations of the inquiry into the fire.
“Local authorities are generally being denied access to the building safety remediation funding, which was announced last year, and this has got to change.
“Ensuring that council housing stock is as safe as can be is a top priority for councils, and a lot needs to be done across the country to get everything to the same high standards.”
