Grenfell safety bill $1b

So far 60 tower blocks have failed tests, with cladding to be replaced

The British Government faces an estimated bill of more than £600 million ($1b) for replacing flammable cladding on housing blocks after the Grenfell Tower disaster.

Sixty blocks have so far failed cladding fire safety checks — every one tested so far — with 540 more still to be looked at.

The Government said highrise buildings in 25 local authorities nationwide had now failed fire cladding safety tests.

Industry experts said the cost of replacing the cladding on each block would top £1m and costs would spiral far higher if residents had to be evacuated during building work.

Simon Taylor, who has fitted cladding to 25 local authority tower blocks as director of a Yorkshire-based company called Northern Heights, said: “You can work on £1m each. It’s not just the cladding but the scaffolding, it’s about access, taking it down, remaking it, redesigning and putting it back.”

The cost could rise because of insurance worries after the Grenfell Tower fire. Stephen Ledbetter, former director of the Centre for Window and Cladding Technology, estimated it would be roughly £1.2m to reclad a tower the size of Grenfell.

Camden Council said about one-in-five households it was trying to evacuate from four blocks in north London were refusing to leave. It said about 200 people were staying put despite being advised “in the strongest possible terms” to move into alternative accommodation for their safety.

The London borough said it had already put aside £500,000 to pay for hotel bills for residents while safety work is done.

Plans to test every hospital for fire safety after the fire that is presumed to have killed at least 79 were in chaos after fire chiefs told hospital leaders they did not have the resources.

NHS watchdogs had told every hospital to arrange safety checks by local fire services by the end of the weekend, but senior officers from the country’s nine fire services said they were not consulted and could not meet the request.

A trust chief executive in the east of England said local fire services, already inundated with safety checks on residential blocks, first heard of the order when hospitals contacted them.

Meanwhile, Prime Minister Theresa May and the leader of Northern Ireland’s Democratic Unionist Party late last night signed a deal to support May’s minority Government.

— Telegraph Group Ltd, AP