Voices from Inside the UK’s Cladding Crisis
“Whatever the government is doing is actually making things worse. Not better,” Rishi Saha offers her opinion with tangible exhaustion, frustration, anxiety and determination. Which makes perfect sense, given the uphill battle she’s involved in.
Six months after 2017’s deadly Grenfell Tower fire took the lives of 72 people, the Bromley flat Saha and husband bought years before the tragedy was found to have the same highly combustible ACM cladding blamed for the speed and ferocity of that deadly blaze. Since news hit, everyone in her building has been trapped in regulatory hell. A complex scenario, but not one without succinct explanation.
Dangerous materials were used in UK housing stock, en masse. Laws changed in 2019 to introduce EWS1 assessment requirements in a number of building types, which gauge fire safety standards, taking into account the causes of and contributing factors to Grenfell. Initially intended for structures over 18metres, thousands of buildings across the country have been identified as in need of work to pass regulations.
The necessary improvements are unaffordable for individuals, not least as they are now stuck in homes — and investments — effectively rendered worthless until a permanent solution is found. Worse still, the government and construction industry are trying to absolve themselves of responsibility through a combination of denial and rushed policy, leaving leaseholders potentially exposed to monumental costs. Meanwhile EWS1 criteria has expanded, and is currently applied to any building with “specific concerns”. Confusion over what this means has seen the numbers increase dramatically.
“You have insurers saying they are not going to insure buildings anymore because of the new legislation, or they are talking about premiums going up from £30,000 to £300,000 per year for a building unless cladding is changed,” Saha replies when we ask about the real world financial impact of regulatory change, before explaining costs began mounting immediately after cladding was discovered on the building, when a waking watch was introduced.
A temporary fix, wherein teams stand guard outside properties looking for smoke or flames 24/7, the sight will do little to ease anxiety for residents, and many are forced to pay for the service themselves. In Saha’s case charges are £6,500 per week between all properties. More than enough for cash reserves accumulated over almost two decades of building maintenance fees to vanish in just three months.
Some estimates suggest 60,000 properties now need EWS1 sign-off, equating to anywhere between one and three million people. Add those figures to the lack of professionals qualified to undertake EWS1 assessments, unclear guidance, and the huge question of who foots each bill, and the extent of this problem starts to become visible.
“It’s all completely unsustainable,” says Saha, before expounding on what the #EndOurCladdingScandal campaign — a national network she is involved with — wants to achieve. “It’s not going to be possible to fix every building across the country. What we said was create a study risk matrix so it actually identifies high and low risk buildings. Immediately your numbers drop to maybe seven or 8,000 buildings, so costs reduce accordingly. There is a level of risk that’s acceptable for us, and we’ve said this.”
The campaign has claimed significant victories since its launch. Not least forcing the government to increase its offer of financial support to privately owned buildings, from £200million to £1billion last spring. More recently, the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors set out proposals to reduce EWS1’s scope. If implemented buildings of six stories and under will not require the form unless they have a cladding system covering more than a quarter of the surface, or cladding comprised of Grenfell-style panels or vertically stacked flammable balconies. For anything under four floors, EWS1 assessment is only necessary where flammable cladding is identified. Should this pass, 431,000 leaseholders could escape property purgatory.
“Rumours have been circulating that the total cost of all this is nearer to £30billion,” says Alex Kubiakowska, whose flat also needs EWS1 sign off, when we mention the five-fold increase in government budget for the private sector cladding crisis. Her scepticism is valid, given she was only told of a problem with her home in September 2020, more than three years after the Grenfell Tower fire, suggesting the extent of this issue may still be underestimated.
“We had neighbours living in the flat next door who started thinking about moving in 2017, they just got out and managed to move. We also know someone who is part of our local campaign group, he only moved here in April 2020. At the time he was told there were no problems, now he’s stuck in this,” she continues, going on to reveal each leaseholder is now being charged around £720 per month for a waking watch.
“Until the bill lands on your doorstep you don’t want to know about it. But this is really beginning to look like everyone who lives in a city or town, in a new development, could be affected. So that includes many journalists, which is why you see everybody writing about it now,” says Saha, who cites 2020’s frantic pandemic news agenda as a major hinderance to the campaign. “Initially it was about how to engage people. Then when we engaged them — because they realise it’s about them or their loved ones — it has become how do you keep their attention when the news cycle is all about the virus?
“In January 2020 it was announced more even buildings were involved, and we could have made some real noise but COVID-19 started shortly after so there was no news space. And the government relegated the issue,” Saha explains, telling us increasing public support is now essential to put pressure on MPs, who so far have largely failed to acknowledge that Westminster needs to do significantly more than it currently is. Whether that’s upping the underwhelming financial support on offer, enforcing a levy on companies that have effectively miss-sold properties, relaxing EWS1, or all three.
“There are politicians who have and are speaking up, and these are on both sides of the major parties. But this isn’t being translated into action. I guess the number of those speaking up on the side of the ruling party is not significant enough yet to make the Prime Minister or the Chancellor recognise the scale of the problem,” Saha says, giving an insight into just how much work she feels there is still to do. “Some analysis was done, and it showed the majority of people impacted are living in Labour constituencies. The cities. Less than ten Conservative MPs are effected I think. If you do the maths there, why would another Conservative MP whose constituents are not effected do anything? Politics is a numbers game.
“What [politicians] are trying to do is pit the leaseholders against the taxpayers. The narrative has become the need to protect the taxpayer from these leaseholder costs. And that’s a very effective argument,” she continues, betraying a growing concern that increased borrowing as a result of the coronavirus pandemic could present another obstacle to progress, and the end goal of real financial justice for individuals. “The taxpayer in a mansion in Surrey doesn’t understand why they should pay for the flat in Bromley.”
Ultimately this all reflects a much wider issue in UK property. The industry is riddled with regulatory shortcomings that have led to a lack of comprehensive protection for buyers and tenants, the likes of which consumer rights usually demand from other areas of business. The people in this article are in this situation because of a lack of transparency, disclosure and safeguarding, none of which they should be considered responsible for. A grim reality that must surely be used to demand new levels of accountability within housing, on the part of companies and government.
