‘FOUR’ TOWER BLOCKS FAIL SAFETY TEST
COUNCIL ‘TAKING NO CHANCES’ AND START WORK ON STRIPPING BUILDING AFTER GRENFELL TRAGEDY
THE number of high rise blocks in Manchester that have failed fire cladding safety tests was reported to have risen to four today.
So far 60 high-rise buildings in 25 local authorities across the country have failed tests.
Communities Secretary, Sajid Javid, revealed all of the buildings that have so far submitted cladding samples failed combustibility tests.
There are 56 residential high rise buildings run by social landlords in the city and so far only one has had removed cladding as a result of the Grenfell Tower disaster.
The results of tests on further cladding examples are imminent.
Councillor Bernard Priest, deputy council leader, and executive member for housing and regeneration, said: “My understanding is that social landlords have started to get the results of their samples over the weekend.
“I think it is likely that others will discover cladding they installed had some combustible elements in it. But we have not yet been told which blocks.”
Town hall bosses confirmed that the cladding on Village 135 development in Wythenshawe had been deemed dangerous by experts in tests carried out by the government.
Work to remove it from the high-rise in the development in Sharston began last week – as reported by the M.E.N. – after Wythenshawe Community Housing Group, which runs the block, said they were ‘taking no chances.’
Cllr Priest added: “Across the city all our social landlords with high-rise properties with cladding have undertaken the sample testing. We have also done the same with the relevant properties where we as a council are landlords.
“However, we aren’t just looking at cladding, reviews are also looking at all the other risks we know about at the moment from Grenfell.
“We are asking the private sector to do exactly the same with their assessments too.”
Village 135 is not fully clad but there were a total of 78 panels of the material in one area of the block.