The pace of making homes safe has been shockingly slow in the seven years since Grenfell. We welcome the new government’s intention to accelerate remediation, but it must hold all parties to account, with firm deadlines and real consequences for delays, otherwise building profitable new homes will continue to take precedence over making existing homes safe, responsible parties will continue to focus on minimising their own liabilities ahead of making homes safe, and leaseholders and residents will remain trapped.
Let’s not forget that the developer remediation contract terms specifically refer to fire safety defects which are “life-critical”. Being “in negotiations” about remediation or having “plans in place” counts for little when dangerous cladding and other defects still remain on our homes.
We also need to see Labour focus not just on the pace of remediation but on ensuring that the scope of works is not being minimised by developer-commissioned assessments that leave combustible materials and other defects in place – which is leaving leaseholders and residents with higher risks, higher costs, and potentially unsellable homes forever.
While Labour’s focus on developer remediation works is a start, the self-remediation contract only covers around 15% of the 11,000 buildings that recent government estimates have indicated will require remediation. We need to see the same urgent focus on government-led remediation programmes and a wider pool of developers and freeholders being compelled to make all their buildings safe – and that doesn’t just mean cladding, it must include other serious internal building safety defects as well, because buildings cannot be made half-safe.
Ultimately, we must see Labour grip this unrelenting building safety scandal, so that there is a clear pathway for all homes to be fixed at the urgent pace that leaseholders and residents need and deserve, and so ordinary people can finally move on with their lives.
The End Our Cladding Scandal campaign calls on the Government to lead an urgent, national effort to fix the building safety crisis.
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