20 Round Table Review


elements in Part L.” She said that when she has explained the role of ‘breathable’ products in such scenarios, “they just want to put Kingspan in; they will not consider using breathable insulations or plasters, and don’t understand impact on the structure.”


EDUCATION & KNOWLEDGE David Bly said that due to a lack of knowledge on the causes of and solutions for damp and mould, housing associations have an “absolute reliance on the skilled trades to provide best practice on tackling damp and mould, so they don’t have to challenge them.” Martin Hancock countered the idea that providers may need to contract trades relevant to treating damp and mould, saying Clarion aimed to do such work in-house wherever possible. He explained further: ”It’s harder to performance manage and guarantee


COLLABORATE WITH RESIDENTS, NOT JUST PEERS According to Hony Premlal, there was an essential need to “work more collaboratively with customers,” alongside agencies collaborating better


T e challenge comes when you have nine diff erent people dealing with one case, whether it be a contractor, plumber, customer care team, someone using sensor data.” Holroyd continued: “T ere’s all these disconnected bits of eff ort that manager


is having to deal with and having to track all of these interactions is what makes it almost impossible to scale.” While he conceded that Clarion “were doing some great work,” he added that “it’s hard to replicate in a smaller organisation where they don’t have the same set of resources, or don’t have an in-house team”.


SOLUTIONS VOLUMES, SKILLS & BREAKING BARRIERS T e second, ‘solutions’-focused session of the debate kicked off with questions to the panel by each of the three sponsors. David Bly of Cornerstone Management Services (who also attended the 2025 meeting), wanted to know what eff ect the new legislation was likely to have on the number of complaints made about damp and mould in landlords’ properties. Paul Smith from Foundations UK stressed the wider health benefi ts as a


means to help change the ‘complaints culture’: It’s “inevitably going to lead to more initially, but if over a period it can lead to a diff erent approach, where there’s better understanding. If we can prevent it in the fi rst place, we’re preventing costs to the NHS.” Naomi Sadler said the “where there’s blame, there’s a claim” factor would increase, with more tenants encouraged to make complaints, driven by imagery shared on social media in particular. Second, Craig Cundey from Ubbink homed in on the diffi cult issue of the


skills required in social housing teams in order to meet the potential numbers, and potentially challenging array of initial damp and mould hazard reports, asking whether the current social housing workforce had adequate skills to “fully understand the implications if called out to attend properties?” Sarah Garry responded that the Building Safety Act had administered a


“kick up the backside” to the industry, and there was a “series of work by CLC and the CITB to “set out what competence looks like in each of our trades.” She admitted that “some of this gets tricky because it crosses between trades,” echoing the views of Martin Hancock earlier: “It’s not as simple as one set of immovable competencies.” Lastly, Dan Fitch from Tarmac Group outlined the benefi ts of breathable


lime plaster for prevention of damp and mould internally, and asked delegates what they saw as the biggest “practical barriers” preventing landlords from implementing proven solutions.” Naomi Sadler said that more work needed to be going into architects’ and other specifi ers’ training around products, and the “practicalities of renovated


quality of standards works when you’re contracting works out, including complex cases where they need that kind of touch.” Hancock said that education and knowledge in social housing teams was the “key barrier; it’s about knowing what’s available,” and gave the example of like-for-like replacement of extractor fans: “Is that exact same make a model suitable for that property? it might have been installed 15 years ago and the technology has changed so much.” Sarah Garry said that post-Building Safety Act, the manufacturing side of


industry needed a change of approach, to candidly say, “my product’s not the right product for you this time, you need to go and look over here.” She added: “I think we’ve still got this race to the bottom in sales culture.”


DATA-BASED PROGRESS Douglas Booker of the University of Leeds, in common with several other delegates, advocated better data sharing within the sector, in order to help grow good practice and inform other bodies on what is working. He said that while “health is the outcome we want from Awaab’s Law, demonstrating health impact is quite tough,” and combining data was key to provide a true picture. “Sharing across social housing providers, working with local authorities and universities, can be critical in generating a bigger set of health impact data.” Booker said that academics working in the fi eld of indoor air quality


have “been talking for a long time of setting up something like an indoor air ‘observatory,’ obviously, which can both be a repository of all of the amazing data that’s coming out of research projects, to make the sum greater than the individual projects that are going on. He mentioned that such a national database had already been running for over 20 years in France, and UK projects which could contribute data included those with “some economic good news stories for providers.” Martin Hancock highlighted how Clarion was training up operatives to use data to preempt issues within properties.


HOLISTIC APPROACHES T e discussion emphasised the importance of holistic approaches to the problem, to avoid unintended consequences of ‘quick fi xes’ to damp and mould issues. T ese included structural assessments and resident engagement, to address the root causes of damp and mould, not just the symptoms. Dale Holroyd said that a holistic approach to resourcing projects was also


essential, as the “reactive maintenance frameworks” which were prevalent in the sector might be pragmatic, but were also not a good fi t with the non- fi nite nature of damp and mould issues. “Reactive maintenance frameworks are designed around opening and closing jobs, and damp and mould isn’t an open and closed job problem. It’s like the layers of an onion that you have to work through.” He said that he could see more organisations “having someone manage one case from start to fi nish.”


CONSULTING TENANTS Key points raised by the delegates included the need for proactive measures, better communication, and education. Clarion reported a 25% increase in residents needing mental health support. T e new law has led to more complaints and faster responses, but clarity on what constitutes an emergency is still lacking, it appears.


Housing Management & Maintenance Spring 2026


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