Industry News


New watchdog set up to ban dangerous building materials


regulatory body charged with banning dangerous building materials and prosecuting the companies making them. Housing Secretary Robert Jenrick said the


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new regulator for construction products was prompted by evidence at the public inquiry into the tragedy, which revealed “dishonest practice by some manufacturers” and “deliberate attempts to game the system and rig the results of safety tests”. Not surprisingly the move was criticised as


coming too late, irrelevant to current safety problems and because of its focus on future


ver three and half years after the shocking loss of life in the Grenfell Tower fire, the Government is finally to set up a


building, it will not help the many thousands of people currently trapped in hundreds of unsafe residential buildings which they are unable to sell. The new watchdog is to be part of the Office for


Product Safety and Standards (which already exists) where it is expected “to encourage and enforce compliance”. Offences could be punished with fines or imprisonment, for up to three months at present. The Ministry of Housing, Communities


and Local Government said the regulator would have “strong enforcement powers including the ability to conduct its own product-testing when investigating concerns”. The Government is also exploring ways to exclude companies that “have played the system” from future contracts funded with taxpayer money.


A spokesman for MHCLG said the new regulator


would start work “in due course” and “in shadow form” before going fully functional with its new powers after the Building Safety Bill was passed. No date was given for this, but it is expected to happen during the course of this year. It will work with the Building Safety Regulator and Trading Standards to encourage and enforce compliance. Among its critics are the UK Cladding Action


Group and Grenfell United, which represents bereaved and survivors from the fire. A representative of the latter said: “A new regulator doesn’t fix what is out there already. It’s been three and a half years and the Government still hasn’t come up with a plan to get dangerous materials off homes.


Dangerous cladding removal from tower blocks drags on


Privately owned residential tower blocks are lagging behind the social sector in the race to remove dangerous ACM cladding from the nation’s homes, some three and a half years after the fatal Grenfell Tower fire. The latest Government data release in mid


February shows that while all high-rise blocks in the social housing and student rental sectors had either begun or completed ACM remediation work, there are 35 private high rises, six hotels and one publicly owned building where remediation work has yet to begin. Housing Secretary Robert Jenrick has taken


the unusual step of ‘naming’ 14 companies which own ACM clad tower blocks, where work has not started in an effort to shame them into action. Campaigners, charities and MPs are demanding more needs to be done in speeding up the removal timetable and providing


help, particularly for shared owners and leaseholders who are stuck in properties they cannot sell. Following the Grenfell fire, a total of 461 high-


rise residential buildings and publicly owned buildings were found to have the same or similar ACM cladding systems as Grenfell and unlikely to meet Building Regulations. Since then a massive programme of remediation work has taken place with all 156 social sector high-rise blocks now free of the cladding (144), or where work is still underway (12). The picture in the private sector is not as


positive, where 213 high-rise buildings were identified with ACM cladding systems unlikely to meet Building Regulations and just 74 of these buildings have completed all remediation works, leaving 139 yet to be remediated. Of these, 104 have started remediation, but there are still 35 buildings


where no work has begun. There are approximately 11,600 to 14,000


individual flats and apartments in private sector tower blocks where work is still underway or they are occupied and work has yet to start, leaving them at risk of another fire. There were 54 high-rise student accommodation


buildings identified with ACM cladding systems unlikely to meet Building Regulations. Of these, 46 have completed remediation while work has started on the other eight buildings. Robert Jenrick said: “The stats show that, despite


the pandemic, significant progress has continued to have been made with remediation work either complete or onsite on around 95 per cent of buildings. This is a big step forwards. While there is still more to do, we are helping make the highest- risk buildings with dangerous cladding safer, more quickly.”


Nottingham landlord sentenced over dangerous property


A Nottingham private landlord, who failed to improve his rental property, leaving his tenants in dangerous conditions has found it cost him over £1,000. Haroon Karim, from Bramcote in Nottingham,


pleaded guilty to two offences under the Housing Act 2004, section 72(3) and (6) failing to comply with Housing of Multiple Occupancy (HMO) licence conditions and section 30(1) and (3) failing to comply with an Improvement Notice. Nottingham Magistrates Court ordered Mr Karim to pay a fine and legal costs totalling £1001.42 Nottingham City Council’s Safer Housing


inspectors visited the property where they found a number of category 1 and 2 hazards. These included


dangerous stairs, structural collapse, excessive cold, damp, mould, fire hazards, issues with food safety and sanitation and drainage. Mr Karim was served an Improvement


Notice, which he failed to comply with, exposing the tenants of this property to these hazards for an unacceptable level of time. In addition, there was a breach of the HMO licence conditions in that the landlord had failed to provide adequate amenities within the kitchen that were suitable for the number of the tenants living in the property. This included failing to provide a microwave


oven or an additional cooker; failing to provide an adequate number of electrical sockets and failing to provide sufficient amenities for food preparation


8 | HMM February/March 2021 | www.housingmmonline.co.uk


and washing up by not providing an additional sink or dishwasher. Councillor Linda Woodings, Portfolio Holder for


Planning, Housing and Heritage, said: “The work of Nottingham City Council’s Safer Housing team is vital to improving the conditions of homes in the private rented sector, so when we inspect a property and find serious defaults – we expect them to be fixed so tenants can live in a safe home. “We will only take legal action as a last resort,


if a landlord doesn’t not work with us to improve their property. Most landlords are good landlords, but there are some, like Mr Karim, who give others a bad name. I would urge tenants to contact us if they have issues with their home, that aren’t being sorted.”


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