More than a year after the terrible fire at Grenfell Tower only a tiny number of tower blocks with the same combustible cladding have had it removed and replaced with alternative materials, making them safe for residents but raising question marks over hundreds of other high rise blocks across the country. The slow rate of progress was revealed in the latest update from the Government, as concerns mount about the number of affected blocks in the private sector along with the capacity of the construction sector to carry out or speed up essential safety works.

The Government’s £400 million allocation for removing cladding from blocks owned by social landlords has been welcomed, but it is thought to be less than half the likely £1 billion bill for this work. Ministers are holding the line that private sector developers, freeholders and managing agents should foot the cost of removing dangerous cladding from private blocks but to date only two developers have agreed to self-fund the works. Fire waking watch patrols are gradually being removed without alternative schemes being put in place and there is confusion over the ‘stay put or evacuate’ policies, with several fires at blocks in recent weeks causing understandable panic from residents who do not want to take any chances with their lives post Grenfell. The Government’s lack of urgency in pushing forward with clear strategies for ensuring a similar tragedy does not happen again is causing huge frustration and is delaying future planning by landlords. Slow response It is both remarkable and chilling that some 13 months after the fire, that so many families and individuals are still without a permanent home. In an update on the fire’s first anniversary, the Royal Borough of Kensington & Chelsea said 52 households remained in temporary accommodation with another 68 in “emergency” accommodation – 42 in hotels, 22 in serviced apartments, and four staying with family or friends. Just 83 households had been rehoused in permanent homes. The council also revealed it had spent more than £250m on purchasing properties, paying for temporary accommodation and providing specialist care and support for the fire’s survivors and nearby residents. Of the 314 buildings that have failed BRE large-scale system tests, figures from the MHCLG show: • 159 are social-sector residential buildings, managed by councils or housing associations. Of these 111 buildings have started remediation, while works have been completed at just 15 buildings; • 141 are private-sector residential buildings, including hotels
and student accommodation. This rises to 297, when buildings with cladding systems that are unlikely to meet current Building Regulations guidance are included. MHCLG is aware of plans for remediating 72 buildings, work has started on 21 buildings, of which four have completed (data as at 20 June); and • 14 are publicly-owned buildings, including hospitals and schools. Local authorities have assessed over 6,000 high-rise private sector buildings and identified an additional 156 buildings (included within the 297 figure above) with similar ACM cladding systems to those which have already failed large-scale tests. The cladding status of approximately 170 private sector residential buildings is still to be confirmed. The remediation of buildings with ACM cladding is proving to be a complex and slow process, involving the removal of cladding systems, analysis of what lay underneath and an assessment of the broader fire safety systems for the buildings.

Bigger problem

These figures do show the scale of the problem, but they also hide the fact that within these blocks there will be tens of thousands of people trying to live their lives as normally as possible, while living with the shadow of where the next fire will strike and could they safely get out of their home if it was on fire. Almost 1,000 adults have been screened by RBK&C for post-traumatic stress disorder and several hundred have been treated. Children at seven state schools were directly affected by the death of pupils or staff, and 10 more were significantly affected. The council now employs 10 specialist educational psychologists to help them. But alongside these figures, there are the frontline staff at RBK&C and at other social landlords trying to do their best in difficult circumstances, but whose needs are not in the public eye. Just as we are facing a construction workers crisis at the moment, thought needs to be given to ensure we do not face a similar problem over housing management staff in the near future. Part one of the public inquiry is under way but its focus is on the fire itself rather than on the refurbishment of the block some years beforehand and it is a major concern that the whole inquiry could run into 2020. This could delay the process of identifying how and why the tower became such a fire risk and the lessons to be learned from the tragedy. There has also been criticism of the failure of some of the companies involved in the refurbishment to provide full statements so far to the inquiry. The housing sector is hungry for recommendations to emerge at the earliest possible time, so changes can be implemented and confidence restored. Sadly it is unlikely that even interim recommendations will emerge before the late autumn.