Responsible Actors Scheme – details announced

The government has announced details of its Responsible Actors Scheme which eligible housebuilders must join if they wish to continue to build major developments in England.

The scheme, which will be introduced under the Building Safety Act and could come into effect by early summer, requires that members must:

* Identify 11m+ residential buildings they developed or refurbished over the past 30 years and any of those buildings known to have life-critical fire safety defects.

* Remediate and/or mitigate, or pay for the remediation/mitigation of, life-critical fire safety defects in those buildings; and

* Reimburse government schemes for taxpayer-funded work to remediate and/or mitigate defects in those buildings to assist government to to pay for and implement remediation schemes designed to make buildings safe.

DLUHC says that the scheme will initially focus on major housebuilders and other large developers who have developed or refurbished multiple residential buildings that are known to have life-critical fire safety defects, having been assessed as eligible for a relevant government cladding remediation scheme. Product manufacturers are not mentioned in the announcement.

Developers will be eligible to join the scheme if their average annual operating profit, in the three years from 2017 to 2019, …