Leaseholders launch legal battle against government over ‘unlawful’ exclusion from £1bn Building Safety Fund
Manchester leaseholders have launched a legal challenge against the government after they were blocked from the £1bn Building Safety Fund because they had already committed money to remediate dangerous cladding, Inside Housing can reveal. The Skyline Central building in Manchester Sharelines In pre-action protocol letter sent to housing secretary […]Click here to view original web…
Guidance on the Issue of Cladding and External Wall Construction in Fire Risk Assessments for Multi-Occupied Residential Premises
This Guidance Note has been prepared by a Special Interest Group(SIG), comprising representatives of FIA member companies, other invited experts in the practice of fire risk assessment in housing premises, and an observer from the National Fire Chiefs Council.Members of the SIG represent companies that carry out, in total, […] Click here to view original…
The hidden mental health crisis of the cladding scandal
A survey by the UK Cladding Action Group has found that hundreds of leaseholders in blocks with unsafe cladding are struggling to cope with the burden. Jack Simpson reports. Illustration by Rohan Eason “It’s something I had never done before,” Alice* says, describing the moment she self-harmed for the […] Click here to view original…
Labour brands cladding delays a ‘national disgrace’
Party says 56,000 people living in blocks with dangerous cladding three years after Grenfell blaze As many as 56,000 people are still living in tower blocks clad in Grenfell-style ACM cladding, three years after the blaze at the building which cost 72 lives. The government in 2018 promised that […] Click here to view original…
Anxiety mounds for St Albans couple fearing Grenfell-style cladding
Chris and Lisa Rogers have raised concerns over the cladding on their building, Opus House. Picture: Supplied A St Albans couple fear the block of flats where they live could be covered in flammable cladding, similar to that of Grenfell Tower. Chris and Lisa Rogers have been using their […] Click here to view original…
Grenfell fire remembered three years on
It has been three years since the devastating fire that killed 72 people in London’s Grenfell Tower. Local residents, campaigners and politicians have marked the third anniversary of the devastating fire that killed 72 people at London’s Grenfell Tower. Many speakers called for justice for those who died as […] Click here to view original…
‘We’re prisoners in our own homes’: Residents trapped in combustible cladding-wrapped tower blocks say lockdown has exacerbated their fears
There are still 262 private and social residential blocks wrapped with Grenfell-style cladding across the UK ( PA ) Several months after seeing the smoke rise from the Grenfell Tower fire from her window, Mariam Ali-Puttergill discovered that her own home was wrapped in the same flammable cladding . […] Click here to view original…
The financial & mental misery of Bromley high rise cladding
The Grenfell Tower. A bereaved relative has drawn parallels between living through the coronavirus pandemic and the aftermath of the Grenfell Tower fire ahead of the third anniversary of the disaster. Steve Parsons/PA Wire A Bromley homeowner who goes to sleep every night in a potential fire-trap has spoken […] Click here to view original…
Vast unsafe cladding problem remains 1,000 days after Grenfell
A fire blazes up the 24-story Grenfell Tower housing complex in June 2017. London — More than 300 high rise buildings in the United Kingdom still have aluminum composite rain screen panels or are fitted with similar materials, according to a government and local communities committee, three years after […] Click here to view original…
Grenfell bereaved ‘frustrated’ at cladding issue three years on
Grenfell Tower Inquiry A bereaved relative has said it is “frustrating” that unsafe cladding is still an issue, three years after the Grenfell Tower fire. Karim Mussilhy, whose uncle Hesham Rahman died in the blaze, said he had never heard of cladding before the tragedy at the west London […] Click here to view original…
Mortgage industry cladding form branded ‘slow and expensive’ as MPs call for overhaul
MPs have criticised the External Wall Fire Review (EWS1) process, designed to help banks make lending decisions on high rise properties with a potential fire risk, for being “slow and expensive” and have asked for the government to step in. In a report by the Housing, Communities and Local […] Click here to view original…
12 June digital edition of Inside Housing out now
Grenfell third anniversary special: how the government failed to make buildings safe three years after the tragedy and the hidden mental health crisis of the cladding scandal; plus government guidance causes a sale slowdown for flats in buildings below 18m; and housing figures say scarcity of BAME representation has […] Click here to view original…