Industry News


News Editor: Patrick Mooney patrick@netmagmedia.eu


Publisher: Anthony Parker


Assistant Editors: Roseanne Field Jack Wooler


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Managing Director: Simon Reed


Better late than never


Patrick Mooney, News Editor


Editor’s comment


The year has begun with a flurry of official announcements, new policies and consultations affecting the safety of housing across the length and breadth of the country. These are intended to allow millions of people to live safely in their homes and to sleep easily in their beds. So far, so good and not before time, I hear you say. It is over two and half years since the terrible tragedy of the Grenfell Tower fire, which took away 72 lives in a wholly man-


made disaster that could so easily have been avoided. The public inquiry into the disaster has just resumed and will run for at least another 18 months, delaying the prospect of criminal trials until 2022 at the earliest. The inquiry got off to something of a rocky start. Firstly one of the two experts appointed to assist the inquiry’s chairman


had to resign over a perceived conflict of interest on the eve of the inquiry resuming. Their appointment had damaged the confidence of the survivors and relatives of the deceased. But worse was to come. On the first day of the inquiry we heard from its chief lawyer that many of the firms involved in the refurbishment (the


corporate core participants) were “taking part in a merry go round of buck passing.” We then heard a succession of expensive lawyers represent the corporates in a series of convoluted summaries and finger pointing.


BLAME GAME All the firms wanted to defend themselves and avoid taking responsibility for the spread of the fire in June 2017. It was the worst type of blame game being played out in front of survivors and relatives of the deceased. Matters then got even worse when a number of witnesses demanded immunity from prosecution, in order to give their evidence. In the past year there has been a spate of fires in a number of relatively new (or recently refurbished) residential buildings.


The buildings all appear to have been built and in some cases clad in a variety of materials. None of them were clad in the same ACM panels as Grenfell Tower, amply demonstrating that the building safety problem is far more widespread. Fortunately no-one died in these fires, but collectively they highlighted a growing concern over the safety of large


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residential buildings, flaws in building regulations and questionable or downright shoddy practices in the construction sector. The new safety regulator cannot start its work soon enough and it will need to demonstrate it has sharp teeth early on. The programme to remove ACM panels from high-rise tower blocks has been progressing too slowly for comfort.


Deadlines have come and gone and a frustrated Housing Secretary has been driven to threaten lackadaisical building owners with naming and shaming. Meanwhile campaigners have been lobbying for other types of panels to be added to the banned list of products and materials, which currently cover thousands of buildings and not just blocks of flats. They are all around us, on hospitals, schools, hotels, offices, shopping centres and the list goes on and on. It’s all very worrying.


A GENERATIONAL CHANGE So when Robert Jenrick announced the biggest overhaul in building safety for a generation, it was very welcome news albeit a bit late. Many of the changes now being proposed are to be the subject of consultation exercises. Dates for the implementation of any changes are unknown but we can be sure they are some way off. If any changes are made this calendar year, it will be a huge surprise. This is important because it means tens or hundreds of thousands of residents will be living with the stress and worry for a long time to come. We should also be demanding more action to curb the rising tide of homelessness. It currently stands at record levels with


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thousands of families placed in temporary housing and countless millions of pounds being paid to the owners of bed and breakfast hotels. These are not suitable places to be bringing up children and yet this is where more than 127,000 young people are currently ‘housed’. The chancellor could do something about this in the budget, by increasing Local Housing Allowance rates (rather than


just unfreezing them from April); giving councils the funds for a surge in the building of new and affordable homes; and giving a boost to the construction sector by providing the resources for a comprehensive building safety programme - to replace all unsafe cladding and insulation systems, replacing defective fire doors and installing water sprinkler systems where they are needed. It would be a good start and late is better than never.


HOUSING MANAGEMENT & MAINTENANCE


FEB/MAR 2020


New safety regime announced


Grenfell inquiry resumes amid controversy


Ombudsman slams councils


Maintenance costs soar


Patrick Mooney


Window and door manufacturer Shelforce is Birmingham City Council’s chosen manufacturer of choice for local authority building projects. Image courtesy of Shelforce.


See page 22 4 | HMM February/March 2020 | www.housingmmonline.co.uk


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