Ninety4 On the Estuary.
- Credit: Tracey Fowler
People who are paying costly sums to make their homes safe may see a change in the law to protect them from spending substantial costs.
Around 1,000 people who live in blocks around Portishead Marina - which are under 18 metres - are now footing the bill associated with the removal of dangerous cladding.
Residents are caught up in a fire safety scandal exposed by the Grenfell Tower tragedy, and leaseholders are now being forced to pay upwards of £5,000 per flat in remediation costs.
North Somerset MP Dr Liam Fox has since tabled an amendment to the Fire Safety Bill in an attempt to reclaim remediation and interim fire safety costs from ‘responsible parties’ to protect leaseholders from bills they ‘cannot afford and should not have been given’.
St Albans MP Daisy Cooper scrutinises the Fire Safety Bill.
- Credit: Daisy Cooper
MP Daisy Cooper has condemned the financial burden of making homes across the UK fire safe as a national scandal of epic proportions .
Buildings with unsafe cladding and fire safety defects are affecting thousands of people across the country, including hundreds in St Albans.
This week the Fire Safety Bill passed into law despite attempts to persuade the Government to fix the bill or let it fall and introduce a better version in the next Queen’s Speech.
Last year, Daisy joined the fire safety bill committee – the cross-party group of MPs scrutinising the Government’s proposed new laws – after meeting with local residents who discovered their homes were not fire-safe.
South London leaseholders caught up in the cladding scandal are selling their furniture to keep up with huge bills. The rapid spread of the 2017 Grenfell fire, which claimed 72 lives, was found to be caused by dangerous cladding. Now laws designed to make sure combustible cladding and other fire hazards are removed from buildings have left leaseholders facing tens of thousands of pounds in costs. Many of their homes are now unsellable as lenders will not offer mortgages until the cladding is removed. Some blocks were found to be so at risk after External Wall System (EWS1) surveys, a ‘waking watch’ had to be enforced – people who patrol 24/7 to watch for a fire.