Manchester tower block residents ineligible for £1bn recladding fund

Residents of a Manchester tower block facing bills of thousands of pounds to fix dangerous cladding have been dealt “a massive blow” after finding out they are ineligible to apply for the government’s new £1bn building safety fund.

The fund, which was officially launched on Tuesday, excludes remediation work that started before 11 March, the day the fund was announced as part of the spring budget.

A leaseholder at Skyline Central in Manchester, where work to remove the cladding and fix other fire safety issues started in November and is nearing completion, said: “When they announced the fund it was a massive relief because we thought this was all over. So to find out a few days ago that it is not applicable to work that’s already started is a massive blow.”

Leaseholders in the block were told to pay fees of between £15,000 and £25,000 per apartment by the end of January to cover the costs, with many opting to take a five-year loan from the freeholder.

“It’s become a massive burden; I had to move back with my parents and start renting the apartment to cover the costs,” said the leaseholder, who asked to remain anonymous.

“But there are people in far, far worse situations than me. I know somebody has contemplated suicide because of the panic of being faced with these bills and I dread to think what state they’re in currently, having found out that glimmer of hope has just been taken away.”

The Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG) said: “Where leaseholders have already committed to paying, there may be recourse through building owners through warranty or insurance claims”

But the Skyline Central leaseholder said the block was out of its 10-year warranty, and after residents consulted the freeholder and an independent solicitor, they had learned “there isn’t any recourse for us at all”.

The building is covered in high-pressure laminate (HPL) cladding, which studies have shown poses similar risks to the aluminium composite material (ACM) cladding that intensified the Grenfell Tower fire.

HPL is one of several materials covered by the new building safety fund, which is in addition to a previously announced £600m government fund to remove ACM cladding.

However, campaigners are concerned the new fund can only be used for buildings over 18 metres tall, and does not cover interim measures, such as fire wardens, that many leaseholders have been forced to install after tests showed the cladding on their building posed risks.

Ritu Saha, a leaseholder at Northpoint in Bromley, and a founding member of the UK Cladding Action Group, has paid £13,700 for fire wardens over the past few months and is also facing a bill of £70,000 to 75,000 for cladding removal.

“It’s mind-boggling [interim measures aren’t included] when you consider this is all related to fire safety, and it has all arisen out of a failure of the building regulations themselves not being stringent enough, not being implemented properly and for there being a lot of ambiguity in how developers could interpret them,” she said.

The campaign group, which represents tens of thousands of affected residents across the UK, said that according to government estimates the £1bn fund would only cover a third of the known non-ACM remediation work in the private residential sector and was being offered on a first come, first served basis, meaning “the cladding lottery will continue” for many.

An analysis by the Association of Residential Managing Agents found that more than half a million people could be living in unsafe buildings in the UK.

“It is positive the government has recognised there are dangerous materials apart from just the ACM Grenfell-style cladding, but it is a very small baby step,” said Saha.

“We need the government to recognise that the money that has been set aside is simply too small to tackle the scale of the problem.”

An MHCLG spokesperson said: “Our priority is to ensure residents are safe – our £1bn fund will remove the financial barriers preventing this and ensure this happens as quickly as possible.

“We expect owners of buildings of any height, who are responsible for the safety of residents, to take immediate action to make their buildings safe and we have reached an agreement with local leaders so that this important work can continue safely during the pandemic.”