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.
