12 COMMENT THE SOCIAL NETWORK
Patrick Mooney, managing director at Mooney Thompson Consulting
LESSONS FROM THE GRENFELL FIRE NEED TO BE LEARNED
So here we are, 11 months on from the horrors of the Grenfell Tower fire in which 71 innocent people lost their lives, and we are still no closer to having a Government-led solution to the problem of what to do with the high-rise blocks that are clad in flammable materials.
T
he previous Housing Secretary talked a good talk and made the right noises about resolving things for the benefit
of tenants in similar blocks, but so far the Government has been reluctant to provide funding for re-cladding works, or for the installation of water sprinkler systems or any other safety measures. It will be interesting to see if James Brokenshire is better on delivery than his predecessor Sajid Javid, who is now in charge of the Home Office. Many local authority landlords like
Birmingham are proceeding with self-funded schemes, using their own Housing Revenue Accounts to pay for vital safety works. This is no doubt reassuring for thousands of their tenants, but there are a number of problems thrown up by this. Firstly, this money cannot be spent twice! In
most, if not all cases, this cash had been earmarked for other planned repair and mainte- nance works, which have had to be deferred or postponed. If tenants have been waiting for upgrades or long-standing repairs to be completed then sadly they will just have to wait a bit longer. In other cases it is much- needed new build schemes at risk of being cancelled, as claimed by Plymouth Community Homes. Secondly, there is the postcode lottery aspect
to this as not all councils are in a position where they can divert funds in this way. So their
tenants are nervously waiting in their beds at night hoping and praying that their block does not catch fire, while they wait to hear if the Treasury can be persuaded to find the millions of pounds needed to make their homes safe to live in.
FLAWED TESTS Remember it was only a few weeks ago that we learnt that hundreds of millions of pounds earmarked for new build schemes that have not progressed, was returned to the Treasury from Homes England and the Housing Ministry. Could this not be made available now for safety works? Then there is the 64 thousand dollar
question about what type of cladding panels are safe to be put on tower blocks? The integrity of Government-ordered tests has been seriously questioned by the Association of British Insurers, whose own tests have produced very different results. There are questions about whether manufacturers have been cheating, or gaming the system in a similar way to how car engine emission tests were manipulated. The Hackitt Review of Building Regulations
should clear up a lot of the confusion, but in the meantime we are not sure how insurers will view the safety and value of existing tower blocks. This could pose a serious problem for housing associations, particularly if their properties are written down in value and they
THE COST-CUTTING CULTURE THAT LED TO A BOTCHED REFURBISHMENT SCHEME AND TURNED SAFE HOMES INTO A TINDERBOX NEEDS TO BE CONSIGNED TO HISTORY
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