Industry engagement a top priority for Victoria’s cladding rectification program

The Victorian Government continues to make people safer from the risk of combustible cladding, with more than 200 of Victoria’s highest-risk residential buildings now complete, and work on more buildings underway.

Cladding Safety Victoria’s (CSV) program is helping owners through the complex process of fixing combustible cladding on apartment buildings in Victoria by prioritising funding towards those buildings with the highest risk of combustible cladding and providing advice and practical guidance for lower risk buildings.

213 buildings have now been rectified by CSV, equating to more than 10,000 individual homes, making over 20,000 Victorians safer in 84 different suburbs so far.

An additional 69 buildings are currently being rectified, with 76 more buildings scheduled to get underway shortly. In total, 358 buildings have currently been committed funding to have higher-risk combustible cladding removed and replaced by CSV.

Strong engagement and collaboration with industry has been a core part of the success of CSV’s world-first program to date. CSV’s Chief Executive Dan O’Brien and Executive Director of Program Delivery Ashley Hunt met recently with Master Builders Victoria executives and also presented to a broad industry group at the Sydney Build Expo in March.

“The rectification of non-compliant combustible cladding is becoming more and more sophisticated,” Mr O’Brien said. “With such a large number of building projects now complete, CSV has acquired a high degree of expertise in calculating cladding risk and finding approaches that have the lowest impact on the owners in terms of cost and disruption.”

213 buildings have now been rectified by CSV, equating to more than 10,000 individual homes, making over 20,000 Victorians safer in 84 different suburbs so far.

“We want to ensure those learnings are shared with the industry more broadly and welcome the opportunity to continue working with the MBAV and its members.”

The presence of non-cladding defects on buildings within CSV’s program continues as a major concern. More than 50 percent of buildings where CSV has funded cladding removal and replacement have been found to have defects other than cladding, including water ingress and mould, unsafe balconies and other structural issues. Works to address these issues must be funded by owners as they are outside of the scope of CSV’s remit.

“The incidence of defects that we have found suggests a much wider problem. Some of these problems are a product of the original build, some result from poor maintenance and some are a mixture of both,” Mr O’Brien said.

“We are providing information on these other defects regularly to the Victorian Government and its agencies and we will continue to brief industry groups like the MBAV.”

For more information about Victoria’s cladding rectification program, including our recent progress, please visit the website: www.vic.gov.au/cladding-safety.