LONDON – Nearly four years after a fire killed 72 people as it tore through London’s Grenfell Tower – a tall building clad in flammable materials – the British opposition party is demanding that the government come to the aid of hundreds of thousands of people flats and buildings with similar upholstery.
The Labor Party on Monday called on a national task force to deal with the issue, and called on the government to determine the extent of the dangerous upholstery on buildings across the country. The measures are part of a proposed amending a fire safety bill aimed at helping those in homes still wrapped in treacherous clothing. It will prioritize buildings with the highest risk, requesting that funding be available immediately for the removal of flammable cladding, and that tenants and taxpayers be given protection to prevent them from increasing costs.
Labor opposition leader Keir Starmer said in a statement before a debate in parliament that the measures should be a turning point for those affected by the clothing scandal. ‘
“Millions of people have been sucked into this crisis as a result of years of government solutions to turn around, slow down and half-baked,” he said. Starmer said. “The dream of home ownership has become a nightmare for many tenants. They feel abandoned, locked in flammable homes and face devastating costs for repairs and interim security measures. ”
The rapidly spreading and devastating deadly fire in Grenfell Tower in June 2017 was driven by the cladding on the outside, an initial investigation into the flame found with combustible aluminum composite material, or ACM, the main cause of its unspread spread.
Cheap clothing has long been banned in many European countries and the United States because of the fire hazard it poses. But in England it was widely cleaned for use. After the Grenfell fire, the government promised to remove the material from similar buildings.
But in the years that followed, and despite numerous government promises, there were still dozens of buildings clad in the material used in the Grenfell Tower, and even more are believed to have been wrapped in other flammable cladding. Some of these materials were banned from new buildings but existed.
More than 400 tall buildings with the same upholstery have been identified by the government. Eventually, it used the funding to remove the cladding from public housing, committing to also finance the repair of private residential buildings.
According to the latest data, which the government announced in December 2020, there are 165 tall buildings with an unsafe ACM-clad exterior in England, most in urban areas of Manchester and London.
In addition, according to the Times of London, an estimated 200,000 high-rise apartments, home to about 700,000 people, are wrapped in some form of flammable upholstery.
The Labor Party estimates that the impact of upholstery could affect up to 4.6 million properties, based on its analysis of figures from the New Build database and the Office for National Statistics.
In England, most private flats are sold as long-term leases, with the building itself being owned by a ‘freeholder’, often an investment group, and it was difficult for residents as well as the government to hold homeowners accountable for the use of sloppy material.
The cost is often passed on to apartment owners, and in the case of many buildings with flammable upholstery, these owners were mostly first-time buyers, retirees, immigrants, and lower-income earners. Housing experts say the situation could take years to address.
Tens of thousands of people live in apartments they cannot sell, and banks are unwilling to offer new mortgage loans on properties containing flammable materials. Others, in buildings where the material was identified but not removed, were neglected to pay fire patrols at night to ensure their safety. Because the cost of repairs needed to buildings is passed on to tenants, many say the situation is unsustainable.
And because the coronavirus pandemic and the ensuing national lockdown are forcing people to spend more time in their homes, many say they are even more under pressure.
Paul Afshar (37) a fighter with End Our Cladding Scandal, a group campaigning for a government’s effort to resolve the crisis, owns an apartment in East London in a low-rise apartment block with upholstery that has not yet been fully assessed.
He, like many affected by upholstery problems, bought his home under a government-owned program of shared ownership. He owns only 25 percent of his property, though he is responsible for 100 percent of its maintenance. This means that the cost to him personally for the removal of the upholstery can amount to tens of thousands of pounds. Others in similar situations had to declare bankruptcy.
It is still unclear what type of upholstery she built; he is awaiting an assessment. He has tried to sell his one-bedroom property twice in the past twelve months. No credit providers give his prospective buyers a mortgage for fear the building has flammable upholstery.
“In my case and in many other people’s cases, not only are you sitting in an apartment with flammable upholstery, you also can’t go away, but you can’t sell either,” he said. “You’re effectively trapped in a fire.”
Last year, the government announced an expansion of a building security fund for non-ACM upholstery, a £ 1 billion, or $ 1.4 billion, and on Sunday announced an emergency relief fund of £ 30 million for residents who had to pay for night patrols. But those involved say it is simply not enough.
The government said Monday that these measures and two pieces of legislation – an upcoming building safety bill and the fire safety bill – are the right approach. A separate amendment to the fire safety bill, which has been tabled by conservative lawmakers in recent weeks, has drawn broad support, putting the government under pressure to ensure the cost is not passed on to tenants.
The legislators behind the measure criticized labor scientists for using Monday’s debate and a largely symbolic vote on their proposal for a task force to score political points.
Housing Minister Chris Pincher, speaking in parliament, defends the forthcoming building safety bill and the fire safety bill, adding that the issue is complicated.
“There is no quick fix, we should have done it a long time ago,” he said.