Tag Archives: grenfell tower

2021 marks four years since the tragic fire at Grenfell Tower that claimed 72 lives. It shouldn’t take a horror of that scale, or any scale, to prompt change, but yet political divides still seem to be preventing meaningful action taking place. As well as this grim anniversary, 2021 marks the beginning of long overdue regulatory reform, where we expect to see some of the biggest changes to building safety laws for over 40 years.

Since the last time I wrote about the ongoing work led by the LGA, Lib Dem councillors, Lords and Parliamentarians to fight for tenant and leasehold rights, the Government has finally announced a series of steps it is taking to address the cladding crisis.

The trouble is that, not only is this action coming far later than necessary, I don’t think it goes anywhere near far enough.

The £3.5 billion package unveiled by Robert Jenrick fails to address the problems faced by residents living in unsellable flats in unsafe blocks. The fund is restricted to buildings over 17.7m in height, meaning around 88,000 buildings between 11m and 18m require remediation work but have no recourse to funding.

The fact that recent fires in Barking, Crewe, Worcester Park and Bolton all occurred in buildings below 18m shows the risk of this approach.

There will be Government funding for the removal of cladding for buildings of between 11 and 18 storeys, but crucially this is in the form of what the department has termed a “long-term, low-interest, Government-backed financing arrangement”. In other words, leaseholders will have to foot the eventual bill, with the Government pledging that no leaseholder will ever have to pay more than £50 a month towards the removal of the cladding.