Three years since 72 people died in the Grenfell Tower disaster, more than 2,000 high-risk residential buildings are still covered with dangerous cladding, according to a parliamentary committee.
It is three years since the Grenfell fire. Around 300 high-rises around the country still have the same flammable cladding
The situation has been slammed as “an utter disgrace” by the Fire Brigades Union.
The Conservative government had set June 2020 as its deadline for the removal of flammable cladding from all high-rise buildings, but it has failed to meet that target and has pledged only enough funding to pay for one-third of the buildings that need the work, according to the House of Commons’ Housing, Communities and Local Government committee.
And as the owners of the Citiscape complex on Drummond Road in central Croydon discovered to their cost, the government’s slow progress over the cladding issue has not only left residents in such blocks living in fear for their safety but also made it impossible for them to find a new home as the unsafe cladding has made the blighted properties “unmortgageable and unsellable”.
The committee reports an invisible toll taken by the unsafe buildings: 94 per cent of residents in the buildings now report feelings of anxiety; 1 in 5 admit to having had suicidal thoughts.
Official figures published yesterday showed that 300 high-rise residential and publicly-owned buildings still have the same aluminium composite material (ACM) cladding that was wrapped around Grenfell Tower in west London. But it is estimated that around 1,700 more buildings have some other form of dangerous cladding, such as timber or high-pressure laminate.
Citiscape in Croydon needed its builders to pay £2m to have cladding removed
The HCLG committee is calling on the government to make “an absolute commitment” to ensure all buildings with aluminium cladding are made safe by December 2021, and buildings with other forms of dangerous cladding are made safe by June 2022.
The £1billion which the government pledged to carry out the work is “insufficient” and would cover only one-third of buildings needing renovation, according to the committee. It also warns strict rules and a short application window will mean many are unable to access funding.
Clive Betts, the Labour MP for Sheffield South East who chairs the committee, said the taxpayer should not be expected to cover all costs and called on the government to “take legal action” where necessary.
In Croydon, the Citiscape cladding removal went ahead only after builders Barratts stepped in to pay for the £2million cost of the remedial works. The leaseholders had lost a tribunal in March 2018, leaving individual flat-owners potentially facing six-figure bills.
“Whatever way you cut it, it’s not good enough,” Nick Coombe, the building safety manager at the National Fire Chiefs Council, told Inside Housing.
“I don’t think you can argue, the remediation has been too slow.”
On seeing the figures in the report, Matt Wrack, the general secretary of the Fire Brigades Union, was scathing in his criticism of the government.
“The latest figures show that 300 buildings – equating to tens of thousands of homes – still have the very same cladding that caught alight at Grenfell. It’s an utter disgrace.
“The glacial pace of cladding removal continues, and the government still has no idea how many homes are at risk from other flammable materials. We cannot see another year of this atrocious inaction.”
- If you have a news story about life in or around Croydon, or want to publicise your residents’ association or business, or if you have a local event to promote, please email us with full details at inside.croydon@btinternet.com
Inside Croydon is a member of the Independent Community News Network- Inside Croydon works together with the Bureau of Investigative Journalism and BBC London News
- Inside Croydon named Journalist of the Year at 2018 Anna Kennedy Online Autism Heroes Awards
- ROTTEN BOROUGH AWARDS: For three consecutive years, 2017, 2018 and 2019, Inside Croydon has been the source for award-winning nominations in Private Eye magazine’s annual celebration of civic cock-ups
- Inside Croydon had 1.6million pages viewed by 721,000 unique visitors in 2019
Perhaps Croydon Council’s Building Control should look to other projects they have recently signed off with regards to public safety.
The Ruskin Square Housing tower that overlooks Platform 1 at East Croydon Station has windows that open outwards.
It seems that everyone in Construction now knows it’s very bad practice to have windows that open outwards in tall buildings. Strong winds can catch them, wrench the opening pane from its frame and it falls to the ground.
This tragically happened at the end of 2018 when someone passing on the pavement below a building in Vauxhall London with opening out windows was killed by a falling window.
Responsible building authorities and developers no longer allow opening out windows at height.
Why has this escaped Croydon Council?
Perhaps the re-cladding of all these buildings should be part of Boris’s pledge to spend money to stave off recession.
It seems to me that the root causes of the inflammable cladding tragedy was probably deficiency in the UK Building Regulations and, in particular, fire test standards and the prescribed methods of testing, that did not replicate real-life fires. All these are set by the State, so maybe, the State should put right the damage caused by faulty standards and prescribed tests ?
I feel sorry for any Architect, Building Surveyor, Engineer or Specifier, who has in good faith specified an “officially approved cladding product” which has turned out to be flammable under real-life circumstances.
The re-cladding lack of action is indeed a disgrace. Will there be other tragedies ?