We can’t put the responsibility and costs of fire safety all on leaseholders
The government needs to step up and cover the costs of making our homes safe. More than three years on since the Grenfell Tower tragedy, around 700,000 people remain in high-rise buildings found to be clad with dangerous materials, and worse still, the cost of repairs has fallen on […] Click here to view original…
South Kilburn housing activist joins the #EndOurCladdingCampaign as fellow neighbours ‘can’t sell their homes’
Lucie Gutfreund, centre holding poster at an L&Q protest in February. Picture: Lucie Gutfreund A Kilburn housing campaigner has hit out at cladding issues in her block as a national campaign gets underway. Lucie Gutfreund, who lives in Bourne Place, is part of the #EndOurCladdingScandal campaign, which addresses the […] Click here to view original…
Traumatised Grenfell survivor ‘frustrated and angry’ that many buildings still have dangerous flammable cladding
Joseph John who escaped the Grenfell Tower fire and is campaigning for dangerous cladding to be removed from buildings Frustrated campaigners who lost loved ones at Grenfell have ramped up their campaign to get cladding off homes throughout the UK. They are staging a Waking Watch – like those […] Click here to view original…
This property ‘mini-boom’ will become a ‘mega-bust’ if the Kafkaesque cladding crisis is not solved
Not two months ago, I wrote about the infuriating process of trying to get an EWS1, a building fire safety form brought in post-Grenfell. Without it, lenders won’t approve mortgages, rendering flats worthless…. To continue reading Already a subscriber? Log in Enjoy unlimited access to all articles Choose from […] Click here to view original…
Cladding scandal hurts entire housing market says top industry figure
Ed Mead has joined a growing chorus demanding government action on the cladding crisis. He is one of the industry’s leading figures from his decades in estate agency and more recent innovations in PropTech and outsourcing. As most people in the industry know, regulations introduced following the Grenfell Tower […] Click here to view original…
The Grenfell legacy – Government must give clarity or tens of thousands of flat owners will be frozen out of the housing market
Following the Grenfell tragedy, the nightmare for thousands of owners in ‘at risk’ properties goes on, and government must provide further clarity on cladding compliance if tens of thousands of flat owners are not to be frozen out of the housing market indefinitely, experts at block management firm MetroPM […] Click here to view original…
Majority of applications for government cladding removal fund rejected
Just 65 buildings have had their application for funding to remove dangerous cladding approved by the government so far. More than 2,700 applications have been received so far for the £1bn Building Safety Fund launched in July which will be used to remove unsafe non-aluminium composite material (non-ACM) cladding […] Click here to view original…
Homeowners in properties with cladding say they are “trapped” under new legislation
Residents with Grenfell-style cladding still attached to their building say they feel “trapped” as they are unable to sell their properties. Recent legislation has made many properties impossible to sell across South London if they are in a building with cladding, or other combustible materials, as lenders are not […] Click here to view original…
Post-Grenfell fire safety work ‘will never complete’ without change of approach, experts warn
Fire safety work required to make thousands of buildings around the country safe will never be completed without a change in approach from the government, experts have warned. Picture: Sonny Dhamu Sharelines As Inside Housing relaunched its End Our Cladding Scandal campaign with a 10-point plan to fix the […] Click here to view original…
Not all sellers are equal — why cladding changes are urgently needed to free up the UK property market
According to Rightmove, people searching for a home in a village jumped by 126 per cent in June and July compared with the same period last year. That figure should not be surprising, given that if you’ve been cooped up in a smaller flat, with less living space because […] Click here to view original…
My family almost died in a fire in a building below 18m. There is no justification for the government’s arbitrary height threshold
We lost everything when fire ripped through our building in the middle of the night and it was only because of luck that there were no deaths. But we would not have qualified for the government’s remediation funding, writes ThrishanthaNanayakkara Thrishantha Nanayakkara A fire at Richmond House took place […] Click here to view original…
Grenfell lawyers warn against leaving inquiry recommendations to ‘languish and gather dust’
The government must step up its efforts to remove combustible cladding from high rises and must not leave the Grenfell Tower Inquiry’s recommendations “to languish and gather dust”, lawyers acting for residents and bereaved families have said. The Grenfell Tower fire killed 72 people in June 2017 (picture: Lucy […] Click here to view original…