The blaze ripping through a London tower block last week forced Britons to reacquaint themselves with what has become a more familiar sight in recent years. 

Crawford Building in Whitechapel was evacuated and more than 100 firefighters called out to the scene. While no deaths were recorded and the incident was not related to cladding, it sparked memories of the 2017 Grenfell Tower disaster – and concern over the urgency of safety upgrades made in its wake.

Liam Spender, an activist for the End Our Cladding Scandal campaign group, hopes that images of smoke billowing out of another high-rise will speed up current talks between developers and the Government.

“The longer this goes on the more people suffer with waking watch, increased insurance and being unable to sell their homes,” he says. “This is an issue that worsens with every passing hour. We must conclude this soon, so that people can move on with their lives.”

As the deadline of the end of March fast approaches, pressure is on for a solution to be reached on cladding remediation between developers and the housing secretary, Michael Gove. Sources say it could come as soon as next week.

Despite a cooling in hostilities between both sides, sticking points remain in negotiations that have been underway since late January. 

A key issue is the estimated costs of the Government remediation plans, disputed by housebuilders. 

The House Builders Federation last month hired PwC to conduct their own audit of housing with cladding issues across Britain, in response to Government claims of costs in excess of £4bn to remediate cladding on medium-rise blocks. 

Sources involved say PwC’s final costs projections are likely to be lower than £1bn, with a tenth as many houses needing remediation compared to official estimates.

Lawyers from Linklaters have also been brought in by the House Builders Federation, to fight back against what developers view as attempts by Mr Gove to strong arm the sector into covering all remediation costs.

Persimmon has also taken legal advice from Lord Pannick QC, according to reports, following threats by Mr Gove to stop UK housebuilders from trading and to block planning permissions for any that had not done enough remediation work.

Dean Finch, boss of Persimmon, wrote to the Levelling Up department last month to express these concerns, saying that, in Lord Pannick’s view, the threats were illegal.

One negotiator on the housebuilding side says: “The Government’s data is rubbish – which is a big cause of the delay. Both the number of buildings impacted and the overall cost of the remediation is well above the number we expect to see having spoken with people in the industry”.

“Gove’s still saying [he needs] solutions by the end of March, and given the lack of specifics which have been worked through that’s a huge ask.”

Developers are keen to impress that while Mr Gove has rejected their latest offer – cover only their own costs on the condition of “no further call on our members in respect of these issues” – the tone has markedly improved. 

Still, their accountants and lawyers represent an organised opposition against perceived strong-arm tactics.

Whitehall language in early January argued that “polluters must pay”, referencing how all developers who caused cladding issues must rectify them. This, however, was quickly replaced with “those with the broadest shoulders should carry the biggest load”, as it became clear how hard it would be to chase foreign builders without any remaining footprint in the UK.

Developers responded with fury with one executive in January describing his approach as “Marxist”.

He added: “He didn’t threaten to kill my children, but everything else was on the table. You wouldn’t expect Shell to pick up the costs of a BP oil spill.

“We don’t have any problem at all with cleaning up our own mess, and we’re paying the additional tax on top of that, but this is yet another ask.”

Housebuilders’ stance has remained relatively united throughout, with Persimmon being one of the only examples of a slight outsider among them. Still rebuilding its reputation following the coverage of Jeff Fairburn’s controversial £75m bonus, the developer has taken a softer stance towards Whitehall to limit any further damage.

“They’re already coming off the back of Fairburn and the reputational issues there, and they don’t have as much cladding exposure given they rarely build above 11m,” said an executive at a rival developer. “It’s quite clear they are in a different set of circumstances than Berkeley.” Berkeley builds almost exclusively above 11m developments and have higher exposure to remediation.

As negotiations continue, insiders say talks have become bogged down in disputes over details and data.