The cladding crisis
Nearly four years after the Grenfell Tower disaster, many thousands of people are still stuck in unsafe flats
What did the Grenfell fire reveal?
The Grenfell Tower Inquiry concluded in 2019 that the block’s cladding was the “primary cause” of the rapid spread of the fire that killed 72 people in June 2017. Cladding is used to weatherproof, insulate and improve the appearance of buildings. On Grenfell, it was made from aluminium composite material (ACM) – two skins of aluminium with a core made of polyethylene, a common plastic which is chemically similar to paraffin: it melts and catches fire easily, giving off a similar amount of energy to diesel. After the fire, the Government identified many high-rise residential buildings clad with dangerous ACM: a total of 462 across the UK. Fixing these so they are no longer potential death traps has been painfully slow. By January, 132 blocks had not yet been made safe, or “remediated”; work had yet to begin on 45 of them. And unfortunately, this is only the tip of the iceberg.
What other problems are there?
Thousands of buildings not classified as high-rise – i.e. below 18 metres (59ft) or six storeys high – are also clad in hazardous ACM material. There are also other types of cladding, such as high pressure laminate (HPL), which are combustible and deemed dangerous: a seven-storey student block in Bolton clad in HPL was destroyed in a (non-fatal) fire in 2019. External walls are affected by other grave safety issues, such as the failure to install barriers in the cavities behind the cladding, meaning that fires can spread rapidly. Timber balconies are a concern: timber and plastic mesh balconies at Samuel Garside House in Barking contributed to the large, non-fatal fire there in 2019. Many additional safety defects not related to cladding have been exposed, too, from faulty fire doors to the failure to fire-proof buildings’ steel frameworks.
How many people are affected?
Part of the problem is that we don’t know exactly, but the number is very large: Labour has claimed that 4.6 million properties and 11 million residents could be affected. This is almost certainly an overestimate. The Ministry of Housing, Communities & Local Government has calculated that around 839,000 private leasehold flats are affected (though many housing association and council rental properties are also affected). The magazine Inside Housing has estimated that more than 700,000 people are living in dangerously cladded UK homes. However, many more are affected because there is wide uncertainty about which homes are safe. The issue now affects nearly every owner of a recently constructed purpose-built flat.
How are they affected?
For those at the sharp end of the problem, there is the ever-present threat of dying in a fire. Thousands are living in homes officially deemed so unsafe as to require a “waking watch”, or 24-hour fire wardens. Not only that, but leaseholders are being pursued for the cost of safety measures: many have been billed tens of thousands of pounds by the freeholders of the buildings, and have seen hundreds of pounds added to service charges to cover costs. Hundreds of thousands of homeowners – many of whom are young, first-time buyers – are now trapped in flats they cannot sell, or even remortgage, until they have passed an “External Wall Fire Review” test.
How did the situation come about?
It’s easy to blame the developers, but this is a systemic problem: a damning official report chaired by Dame Judith Hackitt found in 2018 that “the current system of building regulations and fire safety is not fit for purpose”. “The nutshell version,” writes Peter Apps of Inside Housing, “is that a combination of loose regulation, poor enforcement, cut corners and missold products, as well as builders who prioritised architectural flourishes and cheap routes to energy efficiency, resulted in designs that used combustible materials with abandon.” The crisis has exposed decades of regulatory failure, dating back to the 1980s – but also builders and suppliers who have shown a callous disregard for the safety of their customers.
So why are leaseholders expected to foot the bill?
It seems unfair: these are not defects they had any hand in creating. “If you buy a toaster that is found to be defective, you return it and get your money back,” argues Rituparna Saha of the UK Cladding Action Group. Legally, though, it doesn’t work like that. Freeholders of residential buildings have the responsibility to ensure they are safe – but usually also the right to bill leaseholders for remedial work. The Government has called on freeholders not to do this, and to pay themselves or pursue contractors or insurers for the costs of correcting faulty work. However, given the opaqueness and inadequacy of building regulations, it is hard legally to compel contractors or insurers to pay up. In the absence of other solutions, the burden falls on leaseholders.
What is being done to help the leaseholders?
Last month, the Government offered an extra £3.5bn to fund the removal of unsafe cladding from buildings over 18 metres high, taking the total it has provided to over £5bn. However, this falls well short of the total costs of remediation, which are – according to the Housing Select Committee’s estimate last year – closer to £15bn. This funding also does not cover buildings under 18 metres high, or the costs of fixing non-claddingrelated fire safety defects. What needs to be resolved is how to fairly share costs between leaseholders, taxpayers and the building industry. At present, says Peter Apps, the Government’s policy is “to sit back, issue advice notes, and increase the amount of money it is throwing at the problem only when the negative headlines start to build up”. Meanwhile, thousands of people are suffering, along with the whole UK property market – and the dangers remain. “If it feels costly to act now,” says Apps, “it will feel even more costly if we leave it too late.”