Living through building safety remediation is never easy, but there are ways the experience for residents can be improved.
Dr Jenny Preece, from the University of Sheffield and the UK Collaborative Centre for Housing Evidence (CaCHE), has produced a report based on a survey of and interviews with leaseholders in England who have experience of building safety remediation:
The purpose of the research is not only to report the experiences of leaseholders living in buildings that have been undergoing remediation but also to generate learning and key principles to improve the experience in the many buildings in which work is yet to start.
10 steps for contractors in remediation
Jenny has also produced a helpful poster listing ten steps on-site contractors can take to improve the experience of living through remediation:
Supporting best practice
The Considerate Constructors Scheme invited Jenny to share insights from her research in a case study, Supporting Best Practice in Remediating Occupied Buildings, which highlights areas where contractors and other parties including building owners and managing agents can play a proactive role to support leaseholders experiencing remediation.
We also engaged with the Considerate Constructors Scheme last year, and at our meeting with Greg Clark in August we highlighted the urgent requirement for DLUHC to ensure that there is a Code of Practice in place for buildings where work is to take place. The response we received confirmed that a code of best practice was needed and would be developed.
The Department has since confirmed that stakeholder engagement workshops are being held in the coming weeks to co-develop this Code of Practice with residents, industry and oversight bodies, and members of our team will be joining those sessions.
Living through the building safety crisis
The recent report on learning from experiences of remediation is part of a wider piece of work including a report, published in 2021, on the impacts on the mental wellbeing of leaseholders living through the building safety crisis:
Our thanks to Dr Jenny Preece and to all the leaseholders who participated in the research, many of whom were motivated to use their own experiences to try and improve things for others.
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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