Revealed: Home owners write to Housing Secretary demanding an end to cladding crisis

28 September 2020, 08:56 | Updated: 28 September 2020, 09:05

By Rachael Venables

@rachaelvenables

LBC can reveal that people living in homes with unsafe cladding have written to Housing Secretary Robert Jenrick in a bid to resolve the issue amid fears that another Grenfell fire tragedy is "possible if not probable."

It has been over a month since LBC exposed that in the aftermath of the Grenfell fire up to 3 million people are trapped in 'unsellable' flats due to unsafe cladding - with up to 700,000 people thought to be living in homes with the most dangerous cladding material.

Leasehold groups from all over the country have come together, along with the survivors group Grenfell United, to launch a campaign to 'end the cladding crisis' and have written to the Housing Secretary, Robert Jenrick, which LBC can exclusively reveal.

The letter says residents are concerned "and quite frankly appalled" that the Secretary hasn't responded to new requests to meet with them, and they have told him he has until the end of October to meet them personally.

Part of the letter reads:

"Home ownership has long been a cherished Conservative value - many of us benefited from Government schemes to buy our first homes. How will it look when we, very publicly, go bankrupt or face severe financial hardship while the builders and developers who created this mess walk away?"

The residents have also come up with a 10 step plan to solve the crisis which includes the expansion of the £1billion building safety fund, a fairer, faster process to replace the EWS1 (external wall survey) forms, and they want all dangerous cladding to be removed by June 2022.

A spokesperson for the Ministry of Housing, Communities, and Local Government said: "We're making homes safer, providing £1.6bn to get unsafe cladding off homes and bringing forward the most significant building safety improvements in almost 40 years.

"Progress is being made with work complete or under way in more than 70% of buildings with ACM cladding, rising to above 90% in the social housing sector."

Nick Ferrari confronts the Housing Secretary over unsellable homes due to cladding