SHADOW housing minister Mike Amesbury has raised concerns over the “serious limitations” of the Government’s building safety fund one year on from the fire that ripped through The Cube building in Bolton.

More than 200 people were inside the student tower block when the fire started on November 15.

Cladding failed to stop the spread of a serious fire according to a report from the fire service.

Speaking in the House of Commons, where he was addressing Housing minister, Christopher Pincher, Mr Amesbury, said: “Over three years on from the Grenfell tragedy, and one year since the Bolton Cube fire, 203 high-rise blocks are still cladded with flammable ACM and many thousands more are cladded with equally flammable HPL.

“Minister, isn’t it about time to come clean about the serious limitations of the size and scope of the building safety fund?”

Mr Pincher responded: “(Mr Amesbury) will know with respect to ACM cladding that we’ve made £600 million available to remediate the most dangerous buildings and something like 97% of buildings with ACM cladding either have completed or have started their remediation.

“As a result of the expert support that we have provided to private building owners, we have supported something like 100 ACM projects to remediation. With respect to the billion-pound fund for non-ACM clad buildings, I can tell (Mr Amesbury) that we have had a very significant number of applications which we have worked through for that fund.

“A very significant number have now been asked to make further information available so that we can advance those applications. We will get the money out of the door as quickly as we can, we will also encourage builders and owners to remediate the buildings themselves because that is what they are obliged to do. It should not fall upon the taxpayer to pay for remediation.”