link to ringley website
  • Home
  • About Us
    About us & leadership Awards Savings for Clients Case Studies Green Management Strategies Market Overview Leasehold Reform Campaign Money Back Guarantee
  • Our Services
    • Asset Management
      • UK Asset Management
      • Project Monitoring
      • ESG Consultancy & Implementation
      • PropTech & Living Sectors Platform
      • Marketing Insights
      • Resident Journey
      • Stabilised Assets
      • UK Build to Rent
      • UK Later Living
      • UK Co-Living
      • UK Student Accommodation
      • UK Single Family Housing
    • Block Management
      • Overview - London
      • Overview - Wales & West
      • Overview - Southwest
      • Right to Manage
      • Freehold Management
      • Resident Management
      • Estates of Houses
      • Ground Rent Collection
      • How to change agent?
      • Block Management Services
      • Can't afford an agent?
      • Legal & Tribunals
      • Top 10 Tips
      • Report an incident
    • Commercial Management
    • Law
      • Overview
      • Meet The Team
      • Recommendations
      • Right to Manage
      • Lease Extensions
      • Freehold Purchase
      • Absentee Freeholder
      • Court Appointed Manager
      • Conveyancing - Wales
      • Conveyancing - England
      • Service Charge/Rent Arrears Recovery
      • Company Secretary
    • Property Valuations
      • Overview
      • Loan Security
      • Company Accounts
      • Lease Extensions
      • Freehold Purchase
      • Rent Reviews
      • Ground Rent Investment
      • Development Valuations
      • Expert Witness & Litigation
      • Tax, Trusts & Accounts Valuations
      • Trading Business
      • Compulsory Purchase
      • Residential Valuations
    • Engineering
      • Overview
      • EWS1 Consultancy
      • Asbestos
      • Contract Administration
      • Fire Assesment
      • Homebuyer Survey
      • Building Survey
      • Schedules
      • Party Wall Matters
      • Principle Designer
      • Disability Access Audits
      • Small Building Works
      • Fire Door Inspection
      • Insurance Valuations
    • Property Accounting
      • Finance
      • Quote For Service Charge Accounts?
      • Property Accounting Law
      • Accounting Updates
      • To Audit or Not?
    • Plant & Facilities Management
      • Plant & Facilities Management
      • Fire Door Inspection APP
      • Fire Safety Update
    • Site Staffing Solutions
      • Ringley Integrated Site Staff Solutions
    • Leasehold Guidance
      • Overview
      • Right to Manage
      • Purchasing The Freehold
      • Court Appointed Manager
      • Absentee Freeholder
  • Insights
    Asset Management Articles Block Management Blogs Publications BTR Rental Market Blogs Customer Insights FAQ - Ask Our Experts Insurance Calculator
  • ESG
  • E-books
  • Get In Touch
  •    
  • Work with us
  •  
  • Portal Login
Action on cladding - if not now, when?

Written by: Maryanne Bowring 22/10/2020
  465       0
Responsive image

At yesterday’s IRPM’s online seminar, Ritu Saha from the UK Cladding Action Group called on Boris Johnson to be “the people’s Prime Minister” and step in with more money to help beleaguered leaseholders trapped in dangerous flats and facing huge remediation bills. The Government was also under fire from a number of senior industry figures for its apparent inability to grasp the extent, the seriousness and the complexity of the building safety issues facing those living in and managing residential blocks.

On Monday, housing association Notting Hill Genesis announced that it is evacuating more than 1000 flats on its Paragon Estate in Hounslow due to serious fire safety issues. Just let that figure sink in for a moment. All the tenants on the development are living in homes in which their continued safety cannot be guaranteed. This is a situation with which Ritu Saha is all too familiar.

The problems at NHG's housing have come to light as a result of intrusive testing of the kind that is underway in at-risk buildings across the country. Luckily these issues have been discovered before a major incident occurred. Also, they have been exposed by a social landlord with a declared mission to provide tenants with “safe and affordable housing” and with the finances and the ability to rehouse them.

But what if this situation had occurred on a privately owned development? Who would be responsible for taking such a major decision and how could it be paid for? It is likely that the leaseholders would simply have to live with the defects until such time that they could be remedied, either with help from the Government’s cladding fund – which is widely accepted to be inadequate - or without it. In the meantime, as we blogged on Monday, leaseholders are left with huge bills for a waking watch or alarm installation and are living with the overwhelming stress of knowing that, not only is their home not fit for purpose, but it may be a death trap.

The government acted swiftly post-Grenfell to review building safety. But the wheels of change grind exceedingly slow in the world of regulation and legislation. Here’s a timeline:

  • June 2017 – Grenfell Tower fire kills 72 people
  • June 2017 - independent expert advisory panel set up to advise Government on building safety measures.
  • July – August 2017 – Large-scale testing of cladding systems is undertaken
  • May 2018 – Hackitt review of building safety is published
  • December 2018 - Building Regulations are amended
  • 2018/19 – Advice notes 1-22 are published
  • May 2019 – ACM fund is announced to help remediate high-risk buildings
  • December 2019 – EWS1 form is introduced
  • December 2019 – Draft Building Safety Bill is announced
  • March 2020 - Fire Safety Bill is published
  • January 2020 - Consolidated Advice Note is published
  • March 2020 - Government announces £1bn non-ACM remediation fund
  • July 2020 – Draft Building Safety Bill is published

Despite all this activity, three and a half years on from Grenfell leaseholders are still living with the spectre of badly constructed, unsafe buildings, with no end in sight. Only 65 buildings out of 2784 applications to the Government's cladding fund are currently approved for funding and going through the remediation process to date. Industry commentators don’t expect the government’s proposed new building safety regime to take effect until 2023, with the impact of the changes taking up to a decade to be felt.

So wouldn’t it be good to look back on the Paragon story in a few months’ time and be able to say “that was the turning point when the Government finally took steps to effectively deal with a situation that has now clearly become untenable”. The time to act is now - and if not now, when?



Property Management Block Management Building Safety
POPULAR POSTS

Solar panels on flats - what you need to know

Is noise getting you down?

Ground Rent: Fines for Landlords Who Charge Ground Rent

High Court: Right to Rent does breach human rights

Landlords beware - Don't believe everything you read!

RECENT POSTS

New Standards for Smart Appliances Aim to Reduce Household Energy Bills

HMO Investment and Mortgage Trends in the UK: Q1 2025 Overview

Planning Bill Moves Forward as AI Tool Set to Modernise UK Housing System

The Unseen Costs of Building Safety: A Financial Burden on Leaseholders in High-Rise Buildings

Judicial Review Granted Against Gwynedd Council’s Planning Restrictions on Second Homes



Blogs related:

ASSET MANAGEMENT
Three cheers for apprenticeships!
Year 13 students around the country got their A-level results this morning and many will be off to university in the autumn. There are plenty of degrees on offer in property-related subjects and certain universities such as Reading and Nottingham Trent have a strong reputation for delivering a wide variety of courses.But as Dave Sheridan, Executive Chairman of ilke Homes rightly pointed out today, not everyone who leaves school wants to go to ...

Read


ASSET MANAGEMENT
IRPM/ARMA merger to go ahead
It’s official - ARMA and the IRPM are to merge. Following votes among members of both organisations last Thursday the two bodies say they will now “work to progress the approved merger to completion”.So what will that mean for their customers? In the short term, probably nothing much. If your property manager has IRPM qualifications, as many of ours do at Ringley, nothing will change. They will continue to do their job in exactly the same way ...

Read


ASSET MANAGEMENT
Construction materials - Post-Grenfell are they now safe? A call for transparency and accountability
In the aftermath of the Grenfell Tower tragedy, concerns over misleading marketing and inadequate product information in the construction industry have come to the forefront.The "Testing for a Safer Future," review: which was commissioned by the government and conducted by Paul Morrell and Anneliese Day, highlights key areas that demand attention to ensure safer construction practices. "Still Another Mile to Go?", a blog series, explores two c...

Read


Meet our Expert Property Commentators

Mary-Anne Bowring FTPI FRICS FARLA FCABE Founder/Head of Asset Management

Strategic partnerships, holistic delivery/ opportunities, growth, value engineering, thought leadership

Ian Barber MD BTR Mobilisation & Leasing

Runs HQ & site lease-up teams. Drives rent pricing, mobilisation, marketing, happy residents!

Jon Curtis MRICS Head of Building Engineering

Chartered Building Surveyor. Lectures on EWS1 & building safety. Runs CapEx programmes.

Kate Robinson MTPI MD Blocks/FM Management (London Region)

Master plan setup, ops and staffing and resident engagement. ISO45001 champion.

Lee Harle Partner Ringley Law

Plot conveyancing. Debt litigation. Group Company Secretary.

Anthony Kingdon MIRPM AssocRICS MD Blocks/FM Management (North Region)

Stakeholder engagement. Mixed tenure specialist. Budget management. Plant audit, PPM compliance.

Chris Georgalis MRICS Head of Commercial Valuation

Chartered Valuer. Rental valuations: retail, leisure. IRR modelling and valuations for secured lending. Compulsory purchase & rent reviews

Nichola Pughe MRICS Head of Residential Valuation

Chartered Valuer. Rental development & mixed use valuations, IRR modelling. Leasehold enfranchisement specialist

Natalie Birmingham Helpdesk Support Manager

Trainer & Helpdesk Manager: people, systems,contractors. ISO45001 supply chain accreditation.

Steve Norman Planning Director

Land due diligence (opportunities & constraints) Has contributed to a number of award winning schemes.


Insights, articles & blogs
INDEX

PROPERTY
BLOGS

LANDLORD
BLOGS

PROPERTY
ARTICLES

E-BOOKS

inshights shared - link to planetrent blogs

Landlord blog
Read landlord blog
inshights shared - link to ringley blogs

Property blogs
Read property blogs
inshights shared - link to ringley articles

Property articles
Read property articles
inshights shared - link to ringley ebooks

E-books
Read E-books

link to ringley social media facebook link to ringley social media instagram link to ringley social media linkedin link to ringley social media x-twitter
link to ringley social media x-twitter for small device
link to ringley social media linkedin for small device
link to ringley social media instagram for small device
link to ringley social media facebook for small device
  • Ringley Group
  • About us
  • CSR / ESG
  • BusyLiving
  • PlanetRent
  • Talk to us
  • Careers
  • Ask a Question
  • Insights
  • Articles
  • Blogs
  • Subscribe
  • BTR & PRS Buildings
  • What we do
  • Asset Management
  • Block Management
  • Facilities Management
  • Property Law
  • Surveying / Valuation
  • Building Engineering
  • Financial Services
  • Managing Agents
  • Block Management Locations
  • Co-working
  • Renting & Letting
  • Right to Manage
  • Contractor Management
  • Space to Work
  • Fees and Client Money Protections
  • Email: solutions@ringley.co.uk

  • Emergency line 1: 0207 428 2056

  • Emergency line 2: 0207 267 2900

  • Report an incident
  • Our Offices
  • London
  • Ringley House
  • 1 Castle Road
  • London
  • NW1 8PR
  • T: 0207 267 2900
  • London
  • Ringley House
  • 47 Rochester Place
  • London
  • NW1 9JL
  • Manchester
  • 11 Swan Street
  • Northern Quarter
  • Manchester
  • M4 5JJ
  • T: 0330 174 7777
  • Cardiff
  • 122 West Bute Street
  • Cardiff Bay
  • Cardiff
  • CF10 5LJ
  • T: 0330 174 7747
Privacy Policy
Ringley Staff Dashboard
link to ifsm website link to tpos website link to rics website link to ukgbc website link to government security industry authority website link to alep website

All content © copyright 2025. Ringley Limited. All Rights reserved. Ringley Limited, incorporated and registered in England and wales. Registered office: Ringley House, 1 Castle Road, London, NW1 8PR. Company No. 03302438
Terms of use | Privacy Policy | Modern slavery act | COVID-19 risk assessment