Building safety remediation following the Grenfell Tower fire is affecting thousands of buildings in England. Initial concerns that extensive building work was taking place without attention to the negative impacts on residents, who often live in-situ through the work, resulted in the government publishing a Code of Practice for the remediation of residential buildings.

Two years on, writes Jenny Preece from the University of Sheffield and UK Collaborative Centre for Housing Evidence, debates continue about both the pace and the experience of building remediation projects. Here are some of the key issues.

Involving residents in remediation

Our research with leaseholders living through building remediation found that residents experienced a range of negative impacts, unsettling people’s ability to feel at home. The problem of living through remediation was often not considered by those involved in remediation projects. A fundamental tension is exposed during remediation, as the building continues to be ‘home’ to residents, but a building site to those working on projects.

There are also significant issues of power and control that come to the forefront. Noise and loss of privacy were major problems. Some people were living for months behind opaque plastic sheeting, unable to open their windows. Communication was often challenging, and people had little opportunity to find out in advance about disruption.

Improving the approach to remediation is an opportunity to minimise these negative impacts – which can have a devastating impact on people’s ability to feel at home. But this means putting residents’ voices at the heart of remediation projects. This represents a significant culture change, especially in the private sector with little established history of resident involvement when compared to social housing.

The Code of Practice

The code sets government’s expectations for remediation projects, providing guidance on putting residents’ needs at the heart of remediation. This includes both the planning and the day-to-day management of projects once they start, covering areas such as understanding residents’ needs, involvement in decision-making, communications, and considering ways to reduce negative impacts from things like noise, obstruction of natural light, lack of ventilation and security issues. The aim is to minimise the negative impacts of living through extensive building works, which can last for months or even years.

Progress so far

The code was put in place in summer 2023, but there is evidence of variability in the requirements being met. The government acknowledged in the Remediation Acceleration Plan, published in December 2024, that the experience of residents needed to be improved, and that their voices were still not being heard loudly enough.

Meanwhile, evidence to the 2025 Public Accounts Committee inquiry on the remediation of dangerous cladding heard different views on the experiences of residents and the effectiveness of the code. Residents’ groups explained that awareness of requirements seemed limited, and oversight and enforcement needed to be improved. Industry representatives from the social housing sector reported that the code was a useful tool but the profile could be raised, whilst private sector representatives argued that it was central to developers’ approaches to remediation works. These different viewpoints suggest variability in experience, which needs further understanding, especially as more buildings come into the remediation process.

Learning from established histories of resident involvement

Our review of the evidence on tenant participation notes that power is central to the history of tenant involvement in social housing, and wider organisational cultures of accountability, transparency and partnership working are fundamental to achieving effective involvement. Research in social housing suggests that achieving the potential gains from embedding residents’ voices is therefore about more than strong leadership – or the development of something like the Code of Practice – but relies on wider culture change. Nevertheless, our research also highlighted that regulatory prioritisation of resident involvement can be a significant factor in driving organisational focus and change.

The Code of Practice – embedding residents’ views in remediation projects and making adjustments in practice – applies to social and private landlords. In the social housing sector, whilst not without its challenges and variability, there’s a much more established culture of resident (particularly tenant) involvement, and established frameworks for communicating with residents and involving them in decision-making.

In the private sector this is less common, but it’s changing. For example, accountable persons for high-rise buildings (above 18 metres) are now required to develop a resident engagement strategy. There may be valuable cross-sector learning to be shared between different housing providers to understand different approaches to engagement and the benefits that can flow from this, not just in relation to remediation but other areas as well.

Future developments

The code represents a significant shift in the management of large-scale projects that impact on residents, but it’s clear that residents are still experiencing negative impacts, something that’s acknowledged by the Remediation Acceleration Plan. The Public Accounts Committee recommended that annual updates should clarify the ways in which adherence to the code has been measured and monitored, and utilise any available data from resident surveys.

It’s essential to ensure that remediation schemes communicate with and consider residents, and that negative impacts are minimised; this should routinely include evidencing compliance with the requirements of the code. Given concerns raised by residents’ groups, it’d also be beneficial to undertake further work to understand the experiences of residents living through remediation around the country, and the impact that the code is having on the ground. This will ensure that evidence-based improvements can be made in further developing the code and its implementation.

There’s an important gap in evidencing best practice examples of compliance with the code, and building wider awareness about the expectations and requirements of organisations involved in remediation. Greater publicity of the code and how it can be used to positively shape remediation projects are needed. It may also be beneficial to develop targeted communications – for example, through continuing professional development (CPD) modules aimed at contractors involved in remediation on the ground.

The problems associated with remediation have provided a critical lesson in the importance of resident involvement in decision-making; it’s crucial to now show learning in practice through the implementation of resident-centred approaches to remediation, safeguarding a sense of home for residents whilst making buildings safe for the future.

Dr Jenny Preece is a Lecturer in the School of Geography and Planning, University of Sheffield