Cladding groups to meet Housing Secretary calling for urgent funding to remove ALL dangerous cladding
The current £1bn building safety fund is thought to be 80% short
Last updated 19th Nov 2020
Today groups part of 'End Our Cladding Scandal' from across the country will meet with Housing Secretary Robert Jenrick, representing an estimated 700,000 people trapped in dangerous buidlings.
It comes nine months after we followed Abi Tubis from Leeds Cladding Scandal to London for their first ever meeting with the minister:
A week after that meeting, Chancellor Rishi Sunak announced a £1bn fund to remove other forms of dangerous cladding, different to the ACM cladding which was found on Grenfell.
However, registrations for that fund topped 1,700 with experts estimating it now needs to be up to five times bigger to cover all the buildings required.
In September cladding groups across the country wrote to the Housing Secretary asking for another meeting by the end of October.
While that did not happen, they received a response last week, with the meeting now happening today (November 19)
In September, we launched our #ClearTheCladding Campaign to highlight the urgent need to fund the removal of this cladding.
While the government told us they expect building owners to ensure their buildings are safe without passing remediation costs onto leaseholders, many have already been told if their building doesn't qualify for the fund, the cost will fall onto them.
One building was quoted over £70,000 per leaseholder for the removal of the cladding.
This week the House of Lords voted through an amendment to the Fire Safety Bill that would stop building owners from making tenants pay for fire safety work.
However, the bill must now go back to the House of Commons before it becomes law.
Well last week Leeds City Council voted to pressure the government into covering the cost of removing all dangerous cladding by June 2022.
It was after deputy leader Debra Coupar presented the motion, which said council believes that it is a scandal that hundreds of private leaseholders in Leeds still live in high rise flats with dangerous cladding, despite it now being over three years since the tragic Grenfell Tower fire.
The council now supports the Leeds Cladding campaign, stating that it is unfair that many residents who bought their properties in good faith now face both the immediate cost of having to fund waking watches, as well as not knowing whether they will one day wake up to a financially crippling bill from their building owner for remedial works.
Leeds Councillor Paul Wray has been working with leaseholders in the city over the past year and said: "It is right that this motion was passed. We must apply the necessary pressure to try and end this crisis."
Well it also comes after Leeds Central MP Hilary Benn has been lobbying the government for urgent action on this crisis:
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