Industry News


News Editor: Patrick Mooney patrick@netmagmedia.eu


Publisher: Anthony Parker


Features Editor: Jack Wooler


Studio Manager: Mikey Pooley


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Managing Director: Simon Reed


Editor’s comment


Responsibility has to mean something


Patrick Mooney, News Editor


Welcome back to the first issue of the Housing Management & Maintenance magazine since our enforced period of inactivity caused by the Coronavirus pandemic. An awful lot has happened in the housing world in the interim, but the Grenfell Tower public inquiry rumbles on as indeed it will do for many, many more months, or even years, to come. It must be particularly difficult for the survivors of the fire and family members of the deceased to be barred from attending the inquiry in person. The reason given is due to safety concerns for all of those giving and hearing the evidence from the various designers and contractors involved in the refurbishment of the tower, and the need to honour safe distancing for all participants. Instead the Grenfell community has had to follow proceedings on a live feed on You Tube. They will have got little satisfaction from hearing designers and contractors continuing to avoid taking any direct responsibility for the events leading up to the fire. As understandable as the safe distancing procedures might be, it must be galling for the survivors and family members that similar safety concerns and considerations were not enjoyed by the residents of Grenfell Tower back in June 2017. During the refurbishment works which were completed shortly before the fire, many of the residents raised worries about the quality and standard of work in the high rise tower, but the residents also complained that at the time and subsequently no-one appeared to be interested in their views, or in doing anything about the issues they were raising.


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WHY SO LONG? More than three years after the fire, we have finally seen the draft Bill designed to improve the design and construction of residential buildings and the on-going day-to-day safety management of high-rise tower blocks. It is to be hoped that the Building Safety Bill is passed expeditiously and implemented a lot quicker than the programme of removing the dangerous, flammable ACM cladding panels from hundreds of tower blocks across the country. As deadlines for cladding removal works have continued to slip, the Government has set a revised deadline of late 2021 for all of the removal and replacement work to be finished. If this target is met, it will have taken a staggering four and a half years since the fire, for the same flammable panels as were on Grenfell Tower to be removed from several hundred high-rise residential blocks. For such dangerous materials to remain in place for this length of time is wholly unacceptable. Understandably this has appalled a great many people, including the powerful Public Accounts Committee. The Government has an incredibly busy agenda right now with the COVID pandemic and the Brexit process, but it cannot and must not let issues like residents’ safety slide, or for safety to be compromised for want of adequate resources being made available. Surely the Grenfell Tower fire has taught us the need to provide proper budgets for essential works and that while cutting corners might save money in the short term, it can also have dire consequences. It’s also clear the building regulations were not fit for purpose, despite repeated warnings in the shape of the Lakanal House fire and similar incidents at other high-rise buildings. Politicians could and should have taken responsibility; now they need to ensure that a much safer system and environment is put in place.


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Printed in England Adapting to change


Tough the construction industry is now back on site, Covid-19 has not leſt it unscarred. AO.com managing director Anthony Sant speaks to netMAGmedia’s Jack Wooler on how the virus has brought supply to the fore,


and what the company has learned during the pandemic. See report on page 24


See page 24 4 | HMM October/November 2020 | www.housingmmonline.co.uk


OFF THE STREETS On a much more positive note, it was heartening to see the Homelessness Reduction Act has made a very encouraging start in preventing and alleviating the indignity of homelessness for about a quarter of a million people BUT it could achieve so much more if Council services were properly resourced and if there is a huge uptick in funding the building of thousands of new homes for social rent. Councils have been given the primary responsibility for preventing and alleviating homelessness, but they need ready access to a supply of new permanent homes, as well as decent temporary accommodation to deal quickly with emergencies. Action taken early in the pandemic to house many rough sleepers and homeless people in empty hotels is believed to have saved at least 250 lives. This type of response was highly creditable but something similar is going to be required this Winter if high numbers of deaths among those living and sleeping on the streets is to avoided. Extending the evictions ban is a good start but this is only a temporary solution. We need to find a way for landlords to be recompensed for lost rent and for tenants ‘at risk’ to be given greater security of tenure. Hopefully our politicians will stand up and take responsibility for sorting this out.


HOUSING MANAGEMENT & MAINTENANCE


OCT/NOV 2020


Building Safety Bill published


Cladding removal delays criticised


Ombudsman getting quicker & tougher


Landlords lose millions in unpaid rent


Evictions ban extended


Patrick Mooney


AO.com managing director Anthony Sant speaks to netMAGmedia’s Jack Wooler on how the Covid-19 virus has brought supply to the fore, and what the company has learned during the pandemic


On the cover...


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