Residential house building and construction sector: joint open letter with Welsh Government
Joint letter from the Cabinet Secretary for Social Justice, Housing and Local Government, Shona Robison, and her Welsh counterpart, Julie James, to the residential house building and construction sector.
To all parties in the residential house building and construction sector,
We write to industry today to reaffirm our commitment to resolve the fire safety crisis for Scotland’s homeowners and Wales’ leaseholders. As devolved governments, we were forced by UK Government to adopt separate approaches to tackling fire safety in our medium and high-rise buildings and have stepped up efforts to reach a fair, affordable and transparent agreement with developers. The events consuming the UK Government at this time change nothing in Scotland and Wales.
We remain steadfast that the issues in Scotland and Wales cannot be resolved without continued and ongoing commitment from developers and the construction industry and at pace. Striking a fair and equitable deal for homeowners through the Scottish Safer Buildings Accord and for leaseholders through the Welsh Government’s Developer Pact is an absolute necessity – not just in the interests of fairness to residential homeowners and leaseholders but to ensure all parties shoulder the burden proportionately.
We address this open letter to industry and the public to show that our resolve as devolved governments to address cladding and fire safety issues remains a priority. We see no reason why the Accord and Pact cannot be agreed and legal contracts signed over the coming months given positive responses so far.
We cannot allow fire safety to become a ‘wait and see’ issue across the nations. We look forward to continuing that strong working relationship and agreeing the terms so that Scottish and Welsh homeowners, leaseholders and tenants can be freed from the issues of cladding and fire safety.
Yours sincerely,
Shona Robison and Julie James
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