Fight for safe homes for all – make the super-rich pay!
Paul Kershaw, Unite housing workers branch and Socialist Party
Since the terrible fire at Grenfell Tower in June 2017 it has been clear that other buildings with similar cladding represent a serious threat to people living in them. Landlords and government have bickered while progress removing the dangerous cladding has been painfully slow.
Now it has emerged that £500,000 has been stolen from the fund that was supposed to speed up works, according to the National Audit Office (NAO). Another report commissioned by the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government found that reliance on self-certification meant it had little control, and the fund carried an inherent risk of misrepresentation and collusion in “an industry with known historical integrity issues”.
As the recent report of the Grenfell Inquiry concluded: “One very significant reason why Grenfell Tower came to be clad in combustible materials was systematic dishonesty on the part of those who made and sold the rainscreen cladding.” The inquiry had already pointed to the role of cladding in its 2019 report.
Now the NAO has found that the problem is significantly bigger than previously reported. Up to 60% of buildings with dangerous cladding had still not been identified by the government, and at its current rate of progress it was due to miss its own estimated completion date of 2035 for the works. Safety work has only started on half of the 4,771 identified buildings.
People living in blocks known to have unsafe cladding have campaigned for rapid action. Many have been held financially responsible by housing associations and other landlords and live with the threat of huge bills to correct their buildings as well as the fear of fire.
Government to blame
Fire Brigade Union general secretary Matt Wrack commented: “The facts that thousands of residential buildings remain wrapped in dangerous cladding is a national disgrace. We stated from day one that this was a failure of government due to the obsession with deregulation.
“The developers and construction firms must be made to pay the costs of remediation, and the process needs to be speeded up. Tenants, residents and firefighters should be part of the oversight of the work.”
Residents are organising to fight for action through a range of organisations. Housing association residents have come together on affected estates in SHAC (Social Housing Action Campaign, initiated by Unite housing workers) groups to make their voice heard.
The failure of the state, builders and landlords to ensure basic safety and to act with urgency is directly linked to deregulation, privatisation and cuts under both big parties.
We can’t let Labour get away with acting like the Tories and kicking the can down the road. The construction industry, which has made massive profits from unsafe buildings, must be made to pay the price so residents can live in safe housing.
