REMINDER: Brent and Camden Cladding Meeting Tonight 6-7 - L&Q apologise as window falls out on South Kilburn development

 

BOOK HERE

As MPs, councillors and campaigners prepared for the above meeting tonight there was a reminder that the issue with new build is not limited to cladding and the fire risk - it is the overall quality of the buildings that have included balconies that flood, failed heating and ill-fitting windows that are a cause for concern and culminated in a window falling out recently endangering pedestrians in the street below.

 

The fallen window

The void left by the fallen window

 

 L &Q Homes were forced to apologise when a window fell into the street from bourne Place, one of their South Kilburn new builds:

They told Inside Housing LINK :

 

“Thankfully nobody was hurt, but this was a shocking and worrying incident.

“The safety of our residents is L&Q’s number-one priority, and we are very sorry for the concern this has caused.

“Our surveying team attended the site immediately to make the window safe and begin a thorough investigation into why and how this happened.

“All residents in the block were sent a text message on Saturday afternoon, and we were able to check the windows in the homes where we were able to gain access over the weekend.

“Our surveyors have assessed that there is no further immediate risk but advised residents to keep windows shut while we urgently complete a full inspection this week.

“We will continue to keep residents informed and updated while we work to resolve all issues as quickly as possible.”

 

 

Brent MPs and councillors to join vital meeting on the Cladding Scandal March 16th

 

Leaseholders across the country have found themselves trapped in their homes as a result of the cladding and building crisis in the wake of the Grenfell fire.

In order to sell their homes leaseholders have to have an EWS1 certificate and this is not available if the building does not meet safety checks - they find that their home has no value.

While trapped in their homes they find themselves confronted with huge bills as the freeholder/management agency and the builders do not accept liability for the defect remediation. In addition they may also have to pay for additional meanwhile costs of a 'waking watch' fire marshalls engaged 24/7 to monitor the safety of the building.

The situation has left many leaseholders desperate and depressed but they have got themselves organised and are fighting back.

 Leaseholders in Brent and Camden have been in the forefront of the campaign to persuade the government to take urgent action on the situation. 

Join the meeting on Tuesday March 16th 6-7pm APPLICATION 

Information brentcladding@gmail.com

 

Cladding: Help or Betrayal?

 

 Before Robert Jenrick's announcement yesterday on cladding, local #EndOurCladdingScandal campaigner Lucie Gutfreund asked on Twitter whether it would be 'Help or betrayal?'

For many it looks like betrayal for those living in blocks of under 18 metres in height who will be faced with 50-60 year loans to pay for remedial works.

Lucie said on Twitter:

Apart from the cost not being affordable, what is important to also raise is that the £50/mth loan for 30-60 years will make their homes devalued and unsaleable and wipe out the leaseholders' equity if they need to sell their home, and many do need to!

She said she felt disgusted by Jenrick's treatment of leaseholders and his brazen claim that he understands the plight of leaseholders.

 

Cllr Shama Tatler, Brent Council Lead Member for Regeneration, Property and Planning  tweeted:

 

The government  announcement is simply not good enough. Leaseholders should not bear the costs.

 

The monies made available for higher blocks is only for cladding and not for the many other safety faults that have been found including lack of fire breaks, cavity wall insulation and of course the cost of waking watches.

The Fire Brigade general secretary Matt Wrack said: 

From the very start, firefighters and residents have warned that the building safety crisis goes far beyond the flammable cladding that was on Grenfell Tower.

This funding falls far short of the estimated £15bn needed to end the crisis. The government’s piecemeal and patchwork approach – designed to shield itself from responsibility – is wreaking havoc on the lives of millions of innocent people.

The government has sent a clear message that it cares more about their friends and donors in the housing and construction industry than residents trapped in dangerous buildings below 18m or the tens of thousands more with other serious fire safety defects.

A number of new build residential blocks across Brent are affected along with student accommodation in Wembley Park. Forum House owners have been told  by First Port that assessors have found it is eligible for funding for remediation work including render finishes and insulation layers as well as ACM cladding.

Quadrant Houseowners have been told that the report by an independent engineer found that the building can only be granted a B2 EWS form at present which would not satisfy mortgage lenders. Further remediation work may be needed on the external wall in order to gain a full EWS form acceptable to them. Meanwhile the engineer has said further fire alarm installations and a waking watch are not required.

 

Brent Council Housing Lead's response to 'End Our Cladding Scandal' demands

Cllr Hassan (Kilburn ward)

Cllr Faduma Hassan has received an answer to her backbencher's question to Cllr Eleanor Southwood lead member for Housing and Welfare Reform tabled for next week' Council Meeting. The question and answer are below.  

Cllr Southwood  expresses sympathy for the plight of leaseholders trapped in properties that they cannot sell for want of an EWS1 certificate and states that she supports the 10 Steps put forward by the 'End Our Cladding Scandal'  campaing. She reveals that there are potential problems with the external fabric of  four First Wave Housing blocks.  A fire watch has been put in place in those blocks.

First Wave Housing (FWH) is a company which is wholly owned by Brent Council. FWH is a registered provider for social housing, managing 331 properties. FWH was set up to manage properties previously owned by Brent Housing Partnership (BHP).

Question from Councillor Faduma Hassan to Councillor Eleanor Southwood, Lead Member for Housing & Welfare Reform:

Since the loss of 72 lives in Grenfell Tower, 176 private blocks with dangerous ACM cladding have been discovered, but only 10 have seen the necessary safety work completed. Through no fault of their own many leaseholders are facing bills of up to £70,000 to pay for the necessary remediation work – and years of disruption.

The scale of this crisis demands a national response, but more than three years on since the fire at Grenfell Tower, thousands of Londoners, including residents in Brent; continue to live in unsafe accommodation.

Will the Cabinet Member for Housing Welfare and Reform lend their support to the ‘End Our Cladding Scandal’ 10-step plan below and highlight the work undertaken by Brent Council to enhance fire safety protections within council homes?

10 steps to End Our Cladding Scandal;

1.    The government must lead an urgent national effort to remove all dangerous cladding from buildings by June 2022.

2.    The Building Safety Fund must cover all buildings, regardless of height, and a range of internal and external fire safety defects, not just cladding.

3.    The government should provide the money up front and then seek to recover it from any responsible parties or via a temporary levy on development.

4.    Social housing providers must have full and equal access to the fund.

5.    The government must compel building owners or managers to be honest with residents about fire safety defects.

6.    The government should cover the cost of interim safety measures.

7.    The government should act as an insurer of last resort and underwrite insurance where premiums have soared.

8.    A fairer, faster process is needed to replace the EWS form and funding is necessary to ensure all buildings requiring a form are surveyed within 12 months.

9.    Mental health support must be offered to affected residents.

10. Protecting residents from historic and future costs must be a key commitment of new building safety legislation.

Response:

Leaseholders across Brent are being put in an unacceptable position: being expected to foot the bill for hugely expensive fire-related safety works and/or not being clear on how safe their building is and if/when something will be done about it.

In the meantime, many people are unable to sell or remortgage their homes. Earlier this year, the Government extended the use of External Wall Survey Review (EWS1) to buildings of any height, rather than only high-rise blocks. The forms are required by most mortgage lenders. To make matters worse, there is a shortage of fire engineers to do the surveys and complete the forms, leading to delays and increased uncertainty for leaseholders.

The stress and anxiety that Government failure to take proper action on this cannot be underestimated. I support the 10 steps identified in the ‘End Our Cladding Scandal’ campaign.

As a landlord, the council takes its responsibility to be open with residents about safety issues seriously and we are continuing to implement works and improvement as quickly and effectively as possible.

We have carried out external wall insulation surveys of 40 Council high-rise blocks that are over 18m high. Issues needing remediation have either been programmed for works or are being investigated further. We have identified potential problems with the external fabric of four First Wave Housing blocks and will carry out intrusive investigations. However our initial findings indicate that remedial action may be necessary and a waking-watch arrangement has been put in place.

With regards to low-rise properties, we are nearing completion of comprehensively upgrading the fire safety of the communal areas of 1100 blocks including the provision of fire doors to resident flat front entrances. The programme will be complete by March 2021.

We have also carried out external wall insulation surveys of 86 privately owned blocks. From the findings it is clear some privately owned blocks are likely to require remediation work and their building owners have been notified of the problems we found. We have also reported our findings to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government.

Reacting to Cllr Southwood's response Lucie Gutfreund, leaseholder in South Kilburn and #EndOurCladdingScandal campaigner, said:

As a Brent resident affected by the cladding crisis and co-founding member of the #EndOurCladdingScandal campaign, I am pleased that Cabinet member Eleanor Southwood has expressed her support for the EOCS campaign’s aims. The main challenge in the borough of Brent is to hold  the developers and private owners of affected buildings responsible.  They continue to drag their feet on cladding remediation of high-risk buildings and the surveying of buildings of yet unknown risk. Whilst no doubt the resolution of the many problems lies with the Government, we hope that leaseholders in privately owned buildings can count on Brent Council’s support to apply pressure on private building owners and housing associations to establish full transparency with leaseholders and tenants about building safety issues. 

 

We want Brent to set clear expectations that developers, private owners and housing associations will rectify building defects caused by failure in building regulations and skimming by developers, without passing the costs on to leaseholders. We look forward to constructive talks with Brent’s Cabinet members on how Brent Council can support residents affected by the cladding scandal.

 

 

Our MPS & councillors must back this campaign: 10 Steps to End Our Cladding Scandal - the Video

 This is a national scandal with many local residents suffering as a consequence.  I hope our local MPs and councillors will get behind the campaign.

Brent Council and L&Q Homes respond to the South Kilburn scandal

Well done to  Adam Shaw, the local democracy reporter on the Ealing Times in getting a response to the issues raised by Lucie Gutfreund about poor conditions at her South Kilburn home in a guest post on Wembley Matters over the weekend HERE.

The full report in the Ealing Times can be found HERE but this is a summary of the responses from L&Q Homes and Brent Council:

L&Q apologised for any inconvenience caused by the building issues at the new homes and said improvement works are ongoing, with the communal garden set to be reseeded in October. 

A spokeswoman for L&Q added it would meet with some residents over a recent £650 increase to charges, which it said were brought on by an undercharge by energy provider EDF and council ground rent costs. 

On the cladding issue, she said: “Unfortunately, as we own so many buildings affected by the Government guidance on fire safety, we’re not able to inspect, test, and then carry out works on them all at once. 

“Instead we must prioritise our buildings based on risk. Our highest risk buildings, defined by height, occupancy and building materials, among other factors, will be inspected first.”

She added the group is “already responding to an enquiry from residents about the building materials used in the construction of this property”. 

Cllr Eleanor Southwood, who is responsible for housing and welfare reform at Brent Council, said it is in contact with L&Q and is writing to residents to make them aware of how they can put forward complaints or concerns.

She said: “I’m really sorry that these issues persist and understand residents’ frustration. 

“It’s incredibly important to us that people feel safe and secure in their homes and we expect all registered providers operating in the borough to meet residents’ expectations of them.”

UPDATED - SCANDALOUS! Brent Council accused of colluding in L&Q's leaseholder exploitation and neglect on 'flagship' South Kilburn Estate new build

For some time now I have seen increasingly desperate messages on Twitter pleading to  Muhammed Butt, Brent Council and L&Q Homes to do something about the state of a new building on the much vaunted regenerated South Kilburn Estate.  The pleas have been ignored so I have offered Lucie Gutfreund, founder of Homeowners of L&Q,  a platform on which to make her case.

This is Lucie's guest post:

Bourne Place with unidentified black cladding

Buying my first home in 2013 was a joyous occasion for me. I worked hard to be finally able to afford a small one bedroom flat on a 25-year mortgage. I couldn’t wait to move into the brand new and shiny Bourne Place development in South Kilburn, phase 1 of the regeneration project partnership of Brent Council and housing association L&Q. The brochure was promising: cost-effective energy through communal heating system, green landscaped spaces and a positive picture of a mixed tenure development, residents on different incomes, with the social purpose of bringing communities together.

I was very naive.

Window Panels

The shininess of my new home was quickly overshadowed by the reality. It didn’t take long before my flat was flooded from the mains; the rubber seals completely decomposed within a couple of years; something my plumber said he had never seen before. I noticed creeping wetness and mould all around the external walls of our block. Since the first winter I have battled with intermittent hot water; at best I would get about 30 seconds of hot water between November and March. I was left without hot water and heating for the majority of the last winter and even through the first months of the pandemic.

Service charges seemed reasonable at the point of sale at £1,100 a year, even though still a bit high considering I am in a ground floor flat with my own entrance and receive no cleaning or day to day maintenance of my property by L&Q. I don’t have access to communal areas of the building. Now I am being asked to pay £2,200 a year, plus  an extra £1,000 to pay this autumn due to L&Q’s overspend last year. That’s £3,200 to pay yearly on top of my mortgage, utility bills and council tax. I can’t afford this. The costs are even more obscene if your flat’s access is via communal areas; £4200 with service charge and overspend combined for one bedroom flat.

Leaks

We receive appalling service for the charges we are asked to pay. Maintenance is sporadic and often non existent. At one point we had mushrooms growing in communal areas from unattended leaks. Lift cables rusted in a mere few years and had to be changed and we were charged for it. We had rodents and ant infestation. Most landscaping died; we received a revamp of the grounds last year upon my years long complaints but by now most has died off again. Residents’ complaints get ignored and property managers, who change yearly. are nowhere to be seen. Staff on call lines are rude and dismissive and treat us like pests. Random additional amounts of £s are sometimes taken from residents' bank accounts via direct debit.

'Landscaping' 2019

New builds are sold at a premium price due to an assurance that there will be no major costs because the new build warranty is there - usually for 10 years. For years, L&Q would dismiss our concerns about building defects. A property manager would go as far as stating that leaking balconies are architect’s design. When balcony doors started falling off door frames, we were told that we are breaching manufacturer’s guidelines by leaving the doors open - i.e. that we should not be using the doors for what they are intended for. And that L&Q are responsible only for the actual door but we, as homeowners, are responsible for the frame. Eventually it became clear that neither the housing association or the warranty provider have any intention to pay for the repair of defects or do everything possible to avoid submitting a claim to their warranty partners.

Rusted Balcony

Eventually one of our neighbours paid for a survey of her leaky balcony. It finally gave us the proof that there are defects. Another one and a half years on since an estate-wide building survey was finally arranged by L&Q, we are yet to see the numerous problems fixed. We are dismayed by how our blocks could have ever been approved on completion by inspectors.

The communal heating system, promising efficiency and green energy, is another lie we were sold. Under the leasehold system residents do not actually own any communal equipment. L&Q own our communal heating system which means that we have no consumer rights to choose the energy provider. L&Q set up their own in-house energy company, L&Q Energy, and they force onto us their monopoly energy provision at any rate they please and with no service or rate explanation agreement. Worse, they also choose the supplier of electricity for the boilers and the pump as well as for the maintenance. This year they served our three blocks a bill for £138,000 for electricity and maintenance combined. This means a cost of over £1,000 per flat for the privilege of simply being connected to a communal heating system every year.  Energy charges come on top.

Rising Damp in Communal Areas

With the unfolding cladding scandal following the Grenfell disaster, we were in for a big shock last year when we found out our properties are now nil-valued, unmortgageable and unsaleable and potentially a fire hazard. We do have cladding and unknown fire safety status of our insulation and balcony materials. L&Q refuse to conduct the necessary survey, saying our block is the least of their priority being a low-rise and that it can take years for them to survey and remediate all their buildings. The costs are likely to fall in our laps too as the building warranty does not cover cladding defects in buildings completed prior to the amended fire safety regulations in 2018. We despair, realising we have fallen into a trap. We were sold a home, a product which was faulty, and we are now facing being asked to pay to make our homes safe. The new build warranty coming with our new homes is not worth the paper it is written on. We are trapped until our homes are made safe and we pay tens of thousands of pounds for it.

This year we found out that we are also affected by the ground rent scandal. The Competition and Market Authority published their report on leasehold mis-sells and abuses, with one aspect being unjust increases in ground rents. Brent council, via L&Q, sold us a lease with RPI ground rent increases, which the CMA now calls an exploitative practice and a mis-sell. If, at some point in the future, our ground rent exceeds £1,000, our homes will legally turn into assured tenancies and will become unsaleable. We are pleased to hear that the CMA will be bringing prosecutions and we hope they will shed the light on social landlords and councils as well.

Brent Council, the mastermind behind the South Kilburn regeneration project, our freeholder of land and partner to L&Q, has expressed little interest in helping us. Muhammed Butt, Brent council leader, states that our cladding problems have nothing to do with the council. Despite the fact that the council collects £18,000 a year from leaseholders in the three blocks for ground rent, making Brent our landlord, Mr. Butt doesn’t think that compels the council to even speak up on behalf their residents.

Discoloured Exterior Brickwork

A local housing councillor who visited our estate last year dismissed the majority of our defects as ‘just fine’ because her father is a builder and therefore she knows. Even though we have a building survey saying otherwise. We were promised support but a year on we have not seen any real action from the council and staff responsible for Brent’s relationship with housing associations continue to change. When we went to press in 2019 to complain about the state of our estate, Brent council stated in response in Brent & Kilburn Times, that L&Q are their trusted partner and ‘provider of quality housing’ and hence dismissing anything our residents had reported.

Despite our misery, Mr. Butt is proud to display his name on the walls of our development on a plaque celebrating our estate as a milestone in South Kilburn regeneration project. He seems to care little that behind these walls live actual residents, people who were mis-sold costly and potentially unsafe leasehold tenancies; homes with numerous defects under false promises of high-quality homes based on the South Kilburn Regeneration Master Plan. For us, our homes have become a noose around our necks and a major source of unhappiness and mental anguish when dealing daily with the rogue and incompetent housing association, the social landlord and partner of Brent Council.

From Anna O'Neill (@Annareporting)

Some residents have said they would need to look for second jobs to be able to pay for the ever increasing costs of service charges and our communal heating system. I have given up two years of my life raising awareness and fighting for our homes to be fixed and maintained by L&Q. I am getting nowhere. Some days I am finding this extremely hard. And there is no sight of end to this abuse or having our homes finally fixed.

The joint landlords of our homes, the housing association L&Q and Brent Council, continue to ignore us and exploit us financially. After all, that is what the intention of the cross-subsidy model of social housing is: sell a leaseholder a dream of homeownership, make them a mere tenant with no rights or control over their homes and use them as cash cows to fund social housing, under a threat of forfeiting their home if they don’t pay. Leasehold is abuse and councils actively participate in this web of exploitation.

Lucie Gutfreund
founder of Homeowners of L&Q

Since this article was published on Saturday it has nee folowed up by Harrow Times and the Brent and Kilburn Times and other media outlets.

The issue regarding EWS1 forms has been taken up by the LBC radio station.  These are the forms that have to be completed to indicate a property is safe before the owner can sell.  Without the form the owner is effectively imprisoned in a worthless property. LINK

BBC Radio London interviewed Lucie on Thursday August 27th in a programme about the leasehold scandal.  The main segment begins at 19.56 https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p08mx67k

Angry leaseholders, caught in a dispute over responsibility between L&Q and Brent Council, call for action on cladding trap

The Evening Standard hails the development in November 2012

There have been many social media posts over this issue over a long period but no action has resulted so leaseholders of the new build Bourne Place, in South Kilburn, have issued an open letter to Cllr Muhammed Butt, leader of Brent Council, who are the freeholder of the development.  Cllr Butt has his personal imprint on the development as his name is on a commemorative plaque on the wall of this beacon of regeneration.


 


Dear Mr Butt, 

We, the leaseholders with the housing association L&Q in Bourne Place NW6, a development delivered by partnership of Brent Council and L&Q as part of South Kilburn Regeneration in 2013, are appealing to you, as the leader of the council who are the freeholder of our development, to urgently intervene in the cladding scandal we leaseholders are entrapped in.



Due to the revised Advice Note 14 issued by the Government and the agreed EWS1 certification for fire safety of buildings by RICS and mortgage lenders, our development consisting of 3 under 18-metre blocks has also become affected by the cladding crisis.



The 59 leaseholders and shared ownership tenants of Bourne Place are now unable to sell their homes or remortgage without the EWS1 certificate. Depending on lender, we may also face expensive variable rates on our mortgages. We are trapped in nil-valued homes and we do not know whether our homes are safe because our landlord, the superior lease holder, housing association L&Q, refuses to conduct testing of our external walls. They give no indication whatsoever how long it will be before our blocks are examined and how long before they are remediated, should fire safety concerns be confirmed. Our lives are on hold; we cannot move, whether for jobs in these turbulent times or to start a family, and we face many financial consequences. 

Additionally, safety concerns affect all residents, including additional 75 social tenants homes at Bourne Place. In the wake of another Grenfell anniversary, we live in fear as we see more and more fires in blocks with combustible non-ACM materials such as in Barking or Worcester Park - all blocks under 18 metres just like ours. We grow angry as it becomes clear so many of us were sold or rented poorly-built homes but somehow the developers are not being made to act fast and answer our concerns. We are being brushed aside, saying our homes are not a priority to address for the housing association L&Q.


 

One of the excuses we have been given by L&Q, in writing, is that they are not able to provide us with EWS1 certification because they are not the freeholder of our site. Brent Council is. Us, leaseholders, find ourselves here in the middle of a squabble who is in fact the building owner and responsible for acting. We ask you, Brent Council, as the freeholder and superior landlord to housing association L&Q, to clarify with immediate effect the ownership structure for our estate and agree on accountability.





The Secretary of State, Robert Jenrick, has said that all building owners should act, without exception, to test and remediate new build blocks. Unfortunately, as leaseholders, we are largely powerless to force our landlord, L&Q, to act. We are homeowners without any rights of homeowners. Brent Council, on the other hand, as freeholder of the land and superior landlord to L&Q, have the power by lease to make L&Q act due to their apparent negligence to act in line with government guidelines. 

We look to you and Brent Council for help, in your capacity and legal powers of the freeholder, and as the responsible partner in constructing and delivering our homes as part of the South Kilburn regeneration program - homes that were meant to be constructed with safety and quality in mind from the beginning.


 

We look forward to hearing from you soon.
 


 

This letter is written as an open letter, copy of which we will provide to the Greater London Authority and the leader of councils, Mr Navin Shah, as well as enable publicising on social media and/or press. 

Representative of Bourne Place development, South Kilburn
 

 


Supported by UK Cladding Action Group, Homeowners of L&Q and National Leasehold Campaign 

Residents would like to see backing from the Council. They could well take a leaf out of Hackney Council's book:

Novotel, Olympic Way, mentioned in review of post-Grenfell cladding concerns

Novotel Olympic Way

The online magazine Inside Housing LINK mentioned the Novotel in Olympic Way, Wembley Park, as one of the buildings that still has aluminium composite material (ACM) cladding in a review of the issue on Friday.

Harvey Facades. the specialist cladding sub-contractor that installed cladding on Grenfell Tower also worked on the Novotel building which contains residences as well as hotel rooms.

The product used on the hotel cladding was Alcubond consisting of a Polyethylene and Aluminium construction. This is an extract from the Material Safety Data Sheet LINK:

From alcubond/com

Wembley Matters has contacted the Press Office at Accor, the parent company for the Novotel chain wrting:

Cladding on Novotel, Wembley Park, England

This is a sensitive issue as we are approaching the third anniversary of the Grenfell fire and attention is focused on the number of buildings that still contain similar material.

Could you let me know of your current assessment of any danger/risk posed by the ACM and measures taken to mitigate the risk as well as any plans to remove and replace the cladding.

No response has been received as yet.

Cladding on the adjacent Unite Student Accommmodation has been removed and replaced.

Network Homes warns leaseholders they may face £100,000 cladding bills

Inside Housing reports LINK that Network Homes, which has an office (due to be redeveloped) in Fulton Road Wembley and owns and manages homes in Brent has warned leaseholders that they may face bills of up to £100,000 for the removal of non-aluminium composite cladding material (non-ACM).

Network say that this is the higher end of their estimates but their charitable status limits how much they can pay towards the work.  The article does not state how many, if any, Brent properties are affected but out of Network's 20,000 homes 4,000 are owned by leaseholders.

Inside Housing reports Helen Evans, CEO of Network Homes as stating:

This is a challenging situation and we are working on solutions that remediate affected buildings as quickly as possible. 

We are pursuing all alternatives to passing costs onto leaseholders and treating this possibility as a last resort. However, as registered charities, housing associations cannot make a blanket commitment to pay costs that are legally leaseholders’ liability.

If we cannot recover costs from others and the government does not fund the work in the way that it has with ACM cladding removal, we have no alternative but to put our leaseholders on notice that they could be liable for some of these costs.

A week before Christmas Network Homes put this notice on their website:

The government has released a document called Advice Note 14, which tells owners of tall buildings to do a new investigation to ensure the ‘external wall system’ has been properly installed and maintained. The external wall system means cladding, insulation or any other material on the outside wall of your building.

The government advice notes are not clear and confusing even to experts, so we, alongside other large housing associations, are asking the government to clarify their advice. In the meantime, we’ve already started these investigations on some of our tall blocks (the advice note directs us to look at ones over 18 metres – around six storeys). This is for buildings with non-ACM cladding – the type on Grenfell Tower – as those buildings have already been investigated. For buildings that we haven’t started yet, we’re getting a schedule in place to do the investigations.

Investigations must be done by trained professionals and in some cases the system will need to be tested in an accredited test centre. Once investigations are complete, we will be issued with a report to confirm compliance or with some work that needs to be done to make the building compliant.

If you live in a tall building over 18m and you’ve not yet received information about the investigations, please bear with us while we confirm our schedule. We hope to write to you with more information in the new year. Please note, your buildings are still safe – where issues are found we will put any necessary interim measures in place and advise you of these at the time.

If you have any questions regarding your tall building, get in touch with our dedicated Building Safety Team who will be able to help. You can email them at buildingsafetyteam@networkhomes.org.uk.