Housing associations take legal action over tower blocks

Waqar Ahmed, L&Q’s group finance director, has said that L&Q had found “issues that shouldn’t have been there” behind cladding it had removed at some schemes.

Fellow G15 landlord Catalyst said that it “is and will be taking all reasonable legal steps to recover the losses it has incurred as a result of breaches of the building regulations that have led to remediation or recladding works at its properties”.

At least one council is also chasing contractors in the courts. Camden Council is pursuing building firms over work on the Chalcots Estate, which was evacuated following Grenfell. “Legal action is ongoing,” a spokesperson told Social Housing.

While the social sector has been quicker in tackling the issue than private owners, latest government figures show that of 158 social sector residential buildings identified with ACM cladding, as at 30 April 2019, 50 have had works completed, leaving 108 yet to be remediated.

Ms Bailey said she is satisfied with the rate at which Hyde has tackled problems. She said: “We’re coming to the end of a programme, whereas others are just starting. We’ve not had to decant anybody.”

Issues such as the availability of labour had impacted the speed of projects, she added.

L&Q expects to complete its planned repairs by autumn 2020. “As an early adopter of the Hackitt Review, we are committed to following all the recommendations ahead of legislation,” the spokesperson said.

Together Housing, one of the North’s biggest landlords with 36,000 properties, has nine blocks in Salford through a private finance initiative arrangement with Salford City Council, where ACM cladding has been removed.

A spokesperson said: “We are finalising the tender process and anticipating that cladding replacement work will be beginning in early autumn with it taking two years to complete. We are engaged in legal discussions, however due to the nature of them, we cannot comment further at this time.”

Elsewhere in Salford, Salix Homes has finished stripping ACM cladding from eight of its blocks. Remediation work is continuing at two of its high rises, which includes installing fire alarms and sprinklers. This work is due to complete by next spring. It is also installing new fire alarm systems across all 18 of its blocks. Social Housing understands that Salix is not pursuing contractors with legal action.

One Manchester has re-clad 12 of 16 of its blocks found to have ACM cladding. One Manchester said the “significant” spend had prompted a “review of long-term spending plans and subsequent approvals” by its board. Even with government funding, “over half” of the total fire safety costs are being met from internal resources. However, it is not pursuing contractors with legal action, a spokesperson confirmed.

Suzanne Gregson, of law firm Brabners, said some associations have been declined funding for buildings that “narrowly miss” the government’s 18-metre height stipulation. “[For] many, it’s more economically viable to pull down blocks and re-house tenants rather than replace the cladding.”

Richard Petty, residential advisory lead at consultancy JLL, said that a two-year timeline for all work across the sector to be finished is “ambitious”, with two to five years “more realistic”.

He added: “We’re only just getting around to testing high-pressure laminate cladding and we’ve no idea how many buildings that is on.”

He said that the sector has been left perplexed by the Hackitt Review so far. “[It] has produced some complex recommendations, but none of them boil down to ‘here is a new set of building regulations’.”