The facade works
The planned remediation at Neutron Tower included removing combustible rainscreen cladding and Hemsec infill panels, according to a council officer’s report cited by Construction News. The specification also covered new cavity barriers, non-combustible infill panels and the reinstatement of rainscreen cladding.
The 22-storey block stands on Blackwall Way in Poplar. Planning documents submitted to Tower Hamlets council in 2005 identify it as part of Barratt Homes’ 437-home Elektron development.
Barratt Redrow sought a certificate of lawfulness from the council in 2025 for replacing potentially combustible materials with non-combustible alternatives. Tower Hamlets granted that certificate on 29 September 2025. The subsequent building control application was considered separately by the Building Safety Regulator (BSR).
Barratt had already referred to work at Elektron in its prospectus dated 31 December 2023. It said provision had been made for a fire test and identified remediation. The prospectus also gave an estimate of potential cladding-remediation liability of up to £90m.
The developer became Barratt Redrow in October 2024 after completing its £2.5bn acquisition of Redrow.
The approval process
The BSR told Construction News that it received the remediation building control application in February 2026 and approved it on 11 September 2026. The statutory decision period for remediation applications is eight weeks unless an extension is agreed.
The regulator said the proposals had been assessed through the gateway process for higher-risk buildings. It described the application as complex and said it had made several requests for information. It also said continuing discussions with the applicant had been necessary to establish that the proposals complied with building regulations.
Barratt Redrow attributed the development’s technical demands to its facade system. The company said specialists first had to carry out extensive testing and investigation. A bespoke remediation solution then needed to be designed, fabricated and tested before receiving regulatory approval.
The developer said it had been working to progress the remediation as quickly as possible. It remained committed to carrying out the necessary work safely and promptly, according to its response to Construction News. Its statement did not give a date for work to begin.
The fire investigation
London Fire Brigade said crews rescued two adults and a child during the fire on Saturday. Another 50 people had left the building before firefighters arrived.
The brigade’s Fire Investigation Team is examining a range of factors to establish what caused the blaze. The reported scope of the proposed facade work does not establish the cause of the fire, which remains under investigation.
The BSR said it was working with fire investigators and would support the relevant authorities. It declined to comment further on the circumstances while the investigations were continuing and said its actions would be guided by their findings.
FirstPort, the property manager, also declined to discuss specific matters that could form part of the investigations. It said it would not speculate about the circumstances of the incident.
Support for residents and the wider backlog
FirstPort said it had contacted all residents and that its teams had been providing direct support since the fire. That included arranging temporary accommodation where it was needed. The company said residents’ safety was its immediate priority.
Tower Hamlets council expressed its sadness at the incident. FirstPort also offered its condolences to the man’s family and to others affected by the fire.
The case comes against a wider backlog of cladding work. In July, the National Infrastructure and Service Transformation Authority warned that inflation and delays in BSR processes had constrained remediation.
Figures reported by Construction News showed that, as of March, close to 2,000 remediation projects in England had yet to start on site. That represented nearly half of the 4,322 buildings where unsafe cladding had been identified.