Before remediation work above and remediation work in progress below
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A plaque amongst the remediation materials
Construction News LINK reports on another building disaster in South Kilburn. London and Quadrant (L&Q) had made a £15m claim against Bouygues UK and this will now go to mediation.
Swift House and George House in Albert Road were built by Denne Construction in 2010-11 at a cost of £35m. Bouygues took over Denne's liabilities when it acquired the company in 2016.
Denne were also responsible for Bourne Place in South Kilburn.
Construction News reports L&Q's claim that both buildings (Swift House and George House) with a total of 286 flats and maisonettes were 'defective and dangerous' including use of the aluminium composite material (ACM) exposed by the Grenfell fire,
L & Q said that after they removed the cladding in September 2018 they found a number of other fire safety and structural issues including 'inadequately specified and wrongly installed insulation' that would have allowed fire and smoke to penetrate the buildings.
They also found over-stressing and movement of the cladding support frames across both buildings.
Construction News gives a full account in its story LINK.
As with Grenfell, residents have raised issues about the quality of building on South Kilburn over the last few years LINK, and Wembley Matters published an overview in May this year LINK.
Readers will recall the case of Granville New Homes purchased from the developer by Brent Council and cost more than the purchase price in remediation works LINK . The council had argued that it was not possible to get compensation for the defects but reportedly a claim may now be in prospect.
This now comes under the remit of Muhammed Butt, who as well as being Council Leader is also Cabinet Lead for Housing, Regeneration, Planning and Growth.
A South Kilburn resident, reacting to the latest debacle said:
Yet another example of shoddy building work being done during the regeneration of South Kilburn, A fact that Brent Council denies, instead repeatedly talking about the awards given by planners and architects to planners and architects for their brilliant work. I wonder how much compensation the builders are intending to pass to residents who have had to live with scaffolding blocking out their light for many years as well as the fear that goes with living in buildings which could go up like the Grenfell tower.
6 comments:
Comment received by email: Rather explains why residents of those blocks have had scaffolding up for 5 years or more. The scaffolding came down and then went up again. We were told that the first attempt to remove the cladding was botched and had to be done again"
And Brent still maintains there are no problems with the blocks built under regeneration
The first round of remediation in 2018-19 focused on swift removal of ACM cladding in the wake of the Grenfell fire. Further legislation through the Consolidated Advice Note in 2019 brought in scope more issues in external walls to address. Furthermore, in subsequent years, the more buildings were being remediated, the more building owners started to learn that cladding was only the starting point to revealing more defects lying underneath it - some, like flammable insulation/ other materials being problem of regulation, and other issues like missing fire breaks and poor worksmanship a breach of standards. It is not unusual therefore to see two rounds of remediation in buildings where the first round was started in the immediate 2-3 years after Grenfell. Good on L&Q to legally pursue Bouygues. I live in their sister site on Kilburn Park Road and I hope L&Q will be able to reach a consensus with the builder which can set precedent for any issues that may yet be discovered where we are. We have seen issues with poorly installed windows, balcony drainage and heating system since the year of completion (2013).
Another comment received by email.
The possible claim is down to the Building Safety Act.
One of the clauses allows Brent Council to make a claim against Higgins, even though Granville New Homes was completed in 2009.
Previous legislation only applied for a much shorter period, so the council had to wait until the new legislation came in 2022 before they could make a claim.
It looks like Higgins are hoping to only pay 10 million but the council want 25 million according to the claim submitted in 2023.
Living in south kilburn has been a nightmare these last 18 years. Nothing but dust and noise from the building works only to be told they have been made badly and are dangerous to the residents living in them is totally unacceptable. The majority of the project areas made so far have problems so who is going to take responsibility and accountability for those issues? Cllr Butt, what do you say? Where were the project managers? Who signed off on each step? Series of bad management as usual for south kilburn! Fix up and do better!!
See 'Remediation of certain defects' in 2022 Act https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2022/30/part/5/crossheading/remediation-of-certain-defects
Applying redress: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/redress-measures-information-sheet
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