The aftermath of Grenfell has been dither and delay

FOR Cerys Owen in Cardiff, today is a good day. Some time back, as a leaseholder in a block built by Taylor Wimpey, she and fellow residents were told to expect a £58,500 bill to bring their building up to fire safety standards brought in after the Grenfell tragedy.

Today, TW has said it will foot the bill, 100% — even though it no longer owns the building.

Thousands of residents in London apartments, where TW was never very active, are not so lucky. They face years of wrangling with often absent building owners and bolshy managing agents, all the while paying sky high insurance premiums and 24-hour watchguards.

The big row: who should pay to put right buildings that were legal at the time of construction, but are now in breach of post-Grenfell government rules? The builder? The owner? The leaseholder? The government?

TW’s offer is to fund all remedies to make its original work compliant where state funding is not available. This goes further than most to break the impasse, but there is a condition: it will not pay for refurb work the current owners should have been doing anyway. In that one sentence, a million lawsuits lie.

For, up and down the UK, owners are arguing with builders about how much work is necessary. Owners are demanding as much as they can get, and builders as little. Trained fire engineers are in short supply, so the wrangling goes on and on.

All the while, those less lucky than Cerys are stuck in limbo in unsellable flats. Sadly, this one is going to run and run.