Thousands in cladding death traps
THOUSANDS of families are still living in death-trap high rises wrapped in the same deadly cladding as Grenfell Tower.
Nearly 500 buildings were found to be fitted with the highly flammable material soon after the inferno that killed 72 people on June 14, 2017.
Yet five years on, work to replace it is yet to be completed on 58 of them.
And 26 sites taller than 18 metres have not had even a panel removed.
Giles Grover, from End Our Cladding Scandal, said: “As usual, innocent victims are being made to suffer as companies continue to refuse to do the right thing.
“Many have signed a Government pledge but what this actually means in terms of action on the ground to make buildings safe remains unclear for hundreds of thousands of people.
“Five years on from Grenfell, the Government and rogue firms must stop playing games with our lives.”
The cladding used to insulate Grenfell and other tower blocks is called Aluminium Composite Material – or ACM – and consists of plastic sandwiched between two very thin sheets of aluminium.
The Sunday People can today name and shame companies yet to set to start vital remediation work, some of them registered offshore. They were identified on a Government red list of corporate entities “where remediation works have not started on at least one of their buildings”.
Among them is Betterpride Limited, which bought flats in Edgware, north London, shortly before Grenfell. Work to replace
ACM has stalled over a funding row with the Government.
Rocquefort Properties Ltd, incorporated in Guernsey, forms part of a complex web of property companies.
Others on the list are Adriatic Land 5, Rockwell (FC100) Limited, HEB Apartments Limited, HEB Commercial Limited, Property Class England 2 Gmbh & Co KG and Tonenest Limited. The Ministry of
Housing said enforcement action had been taken against 65 landlords who refused to remove ACM. Twenty-six cases of enforcement are against buildings yet to start remediation.
Despite the Building Safety Act becoming law in April, developers and the Government are still squabbling over who should pay, leaving leaseholders to potentially foot the bills.