Developer Pledge (England) and Developer Remediation Contract

[edit] What is the Developer Pledge?

The Developer Pledge was launched by government to get developers to agree to address life-critical fire-safety defects arising from design and construction of buildings 11 metres and over in height that they developed or refurbished over the last 30 years in England.

[edit] What is a Developer Remediation Contract?

The Developer Pledge is now referred to as the Developer Remediation Contract. The transition came when HM Treasury approved the bringing together of all remediation programmes into a single ‘remediation portfolio’; the Developer Remediation Programme, including the Developer Remediation Contract and the Responsible Actors Scheme.

See also the articles: Responsible Actors Scheme RAS. Responsible Developers Scheme RDS, Cladding remediation programmes, transparency and target date and Government building safety remediation data releases.

[edit] Background

In April 2022, the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (DLUHC) published the developer pledge letter. It agreed the principles between each participant developer and DLUHC.and committed “developers who have signed up to enter into legally binding contracts, and to implement their promises as soon as possible.”

The pledge letter asked them to:

• Take responsibility for all necessary work to address life-critical fire-safety defects arising from design and construction of buildings 11 metres and over in height that they developed or refurbished over the last 30 years in England.
• Keep residents in those buildings informed on progress towards meeting this commitment.
• Reimburse taxpayers for funding spent on remediating their buildings.

In January 2023, DLUHC wrote to the 49 developers that signed the public pledge in 2022 asking them to sign a contract committing them to remediate unsafe buildings which they developed. This is also referred to as the ‘developer pledge’ letter. It set a deadline of 13 March 2023 for developers to sign the contract.

The letter also reminded developers that under Sections 126-129 of the Building Safety Act, government would be bringing into law the Responsible Actors Scheme (which came into force on 4 July 2023). This gives the Secretary of State power to “block developers who are eligible to join the scheme but decline to do so or have failed to meet its membership conditions from commencing developments for which they have planning permission, and from receiving building control approval for construction that is underway.”

On 14 March 2023, DLUHC published a list of the 39 developers that met the remediation contract (aka the developer pledge) deadline.

In June 2023, HM Treasury approved bringing together all of the remediation programmes into a single ‘remediation portfolio’. This includes the Developer Remediation Programme, which the Developer Remediation Contract and the Responsible Actors Scheme are part of.

In November 2024, developers met with government to discuss the issues they were having with remediation. During this meeting, they made 35 commitments which were recorded in a joint remediation plan, also referred to as the ‘Joint plan’. The commitments cover:

• improving resident experience of remedial works;
• accelerating work to find all unsafe buildings requiring remedial works;
• improving the quality of assessments used to determine whether a building requires remedial works;
• accelerating work to fix buildings;
• accelerating resolution of cost-recovery negotiations between developers and social housing providers; and
• establishing a developer-government working group to unblock remaining barriers to remediation.

The joint plan also introduced four ‘stretch targets’:

1. finish assessing all their buildings by the end of July 2025;
2. start or complete remedial works on 80% of their buildings by the end of July 2026;
3. start or complete remedial works on all their buildings by the end of July 2027; and
4. resolve all current cost-recovery negotiations with social housing providers by the end of July 2025.

These stretch targets were mentioned again in the “Remediation Acceleration Plan” published on 2 December 2024. Under ‘supporting residents’, MHCLG has stated: “We intend to encourage and support developers to achieve their stretch target to start or complete remedial works on 80% of the buildings for which they are responsible by July 2026, and on 100% of those buildings by July 2027."

Further information and an example of a standard contract can be found via Guidance: Developer remediation contract.

In July 2025, MHCLG published a Remediation Acceleration Plan Update.

[edit] Related articles on Designing Buildings

• Accelerating the remediation of buildings with unsafe cladding in England.
• ACM cladding.
• Building Safety Act.
• Building Safety Regulator.
• Cladding Assurance Register CAR.

• CIOB reacts to Government's Developer Remediation Contract announcement.
• Cladding remediation programmes, transparency and target date..
• Government building safety remediation data releases.
• Grenfell tower Fire.
• Grenfell Tower articles.
• Grenfell Tower Inquiry.
• Hackitt review.
• HPL cladding.
• Joint remediation plan.
• Material of limited combustibility.
• Non-ACM cladding.
• Protecting tenants and leaseholders from unsafe cladding.
• Remediation of a contaminated site.
• Remediation strategy.
• Remedial works in construction.
• Responsible Actors Scheme RAS.
• Responsible Developers Scheme RDS.
• The Cladding Safety Scheme and the Building Safety Fund.
• The Housing (Cladding Remediation) (Scotland) Bill 2023.
• The importance of digitising data to support cladding remediation and facilitate safer housing
• Verification report.
• What the political party manifestos say on housebuilding and building safety.
• Why construction SaaS is a cladding remediation game-changer.

--HannahCarpenterLMC 09:09, 29 Jul 2025 (BST)