Five years on from Grenfell, almost 10,000 tower blocks are still deemed ‘unsafe’ due to dangerous cladding and fire risks

Glamour requested an interview with the Housing Secretary Robert Jenrick. He was not available but a spokesperson from his department at the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG) sent us a statement which said: “We are determined that residents will be safer and feel more secure in their homes. We are providing £1.6bn to protect leaseholders from the significant cost of remediation works and speed up the removal of unsafe cladding.”

The £1.6bn fund outlined by the MHCLG spokesperson relates to £0.6bn for ACM specific remediation and a £1bn Building Safety Fund for other remediation work. But it has been reported that the £1bn fund will only cover a third of the 1,700 ‘high-risk’ towers identified. Which begs the question: just how costly will this process be?

“This has been decades long in the making. It’s a right mess that’s going to cost much more than £1.6bn to fix,” says fire safety expert Stephen MacKenzie. “A government select committee estimated that it would cost £15bn but I would be willing to wager that it could amount to anything from £30bn to £100bn.” Stephen MacKenzie compares the cladding scandal to an earthquake where the Grenfell Tower fire is the epicentre followed by huge aftershocks in form of ACM cladding, other combustible materials, waking watch costs, EWS1 forms and mortgage prisons.

Amid all this uncertainty for leaseholders, one thing is clear. Trust in housing associations, property developers and government is extremely low. Every single leaseholder I spoke to criticised the government for failing to adequately protect them in new draft legislation. Glamour has also seen dozens of testimonials from leaseholders alleging corruption and intimidation by their respective housing associations and substandard living conditions that breach their basic human rights to a safe home. Leaseholders say there is a lack of transparency around fire safety reports and whether or not their housing association has even applied for any government funding. Glamour is not naming these specific leaseholders or specific housing associations for legal reasons.

“Housing associations are so behind with even getting the assessments done,” says Lucie Gutfreund, a leaseholder in South Kilburn, London. “Some of these housing associations handle hundreds of buildings. Their portfolios are so big that they’re not able to deal with this. And the government is still promoting and supporting shared ownership which ends up entrapping people with these huge bills.”

Glamour put the concerns expressed by leaseholders to the government and a spokesperson for the Ministry of Housing said: “It is unacceptable that some private sector building owners have yet to put remediation plans in place. We continue to actively pursue these building owners to encourage swift action. This is not optional – they have a duty to act.” The statement continued: “We remain committed to protecting leaseholders from unaffordable costs and are developing proposals that will address this.”

“There are no winners here, and I think this is going to be ongoing for years,” says Helen Evans, the chair of the G15, an organisation of the largest housing associations in London. “The banks will look after their own interests first. It would make most sense for the government to fund this, taking away the unfairness and the lack of uniformity in the process,” Evans adds.

Getting the government to do more and make the process easier seems to be the one thing that most people can agree on. “You’d think the government would be trying to reassure us,” Hayley Tillotson says. “We’re the ones that could burn to death in our beds.” For now, it looks like leaseholders are on the hook. But in the words of housing lawyer Giles Peakers, “there are a lot of chickens coming to roost.”

Glamour contacted the housing associations and building owners of the properties occupied by featured leaseholders. We will update this story upon receiving a response.

Update: Following the publication of this investigation a spokesperson for the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government sent GLAMOUR an additional statement regarding the government’s position on lenders, saying: “We recognise the difficulties that some homeowners are facing and we are working with the lenders to support a proportionate approach, exploring other evidence that might assist the valuation process.”

*Some names have been changed.