High-rise Buildings: Remediation

Paul Blomfield Excerpts

Wednesday 2nd March 2022 Westminster Hall

[Paul Blomfield (Sheffield Central) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to contribute to the debate with you overseeing it, Mrs Miller, and I thank the hon. Member for Ipswich (Tom Hunt) for securing it. I join him in paying tribute to the work done by his colleague, the hon. Member for Stevenage (Stephen McPartland), throughout this entire debacle. I have seen the former’s comments about St Francis Tower on Twitter and elsewhere. He is right to highlight the issue because many of our constituents will face similar problems as this crisis reaches the next stage. He rightly describes this as a precursor.

Along with the hon. Members for Ipswich and for Stevenage and others, I have made representations on behalf of many constituents in buildings affected by the scandal. Part of the scandal is that in the vast majority of cases, we are still so far off remediation, but for those who are at that stage, there are real problems of the sort described by the hon. Member for Ipswich.

I have recently been in touch with leaseholders in Mandale House in the heart of Sheffield, who are in exactly that position. After all the other traumas that they have faced—the uncertainty over so long; the waking watch costs; the trebling of insurance costs—they now face the problems of remediation work. Their building is to be clad—understandably and necessarily—in scaffolding, which requires the removal of balconies. We all know that in recent times, any piece of outdoor space has been precious. Losing a balcony is bad enough, but the work also involves blocking the opening of the window by the balcony. In many of those flats, that is the only window. People have been condemned to live in a space with no source of natural light and no ventilation. They anticipate that they will be in that position for two and a half years, but as we know, it could be longer, given the way these things unfortunately go.

Mandale House residents will lose access to their car park, as will those in other buildings in the same situation. That might be a comparatively small issue, but in city centre complexes, having somewhere to park a car is important. Residents paid for those spaces, but there is no sense of what alternative provision might be available—provision that they will have to pay for. There are issues about coming back late at night; young women will have to walk through the city, when they would rather park in their building and have direct access to their flats.

There is a range of problems, and in any other situation in which people were facing these sorts of difficulties, they would have someone to turn to for compensation, or perhaps to facilitate their relocation while the work was taking place, but none of that is available to these people. People might want to move temporarily, but their flat will be unrentable. People might want to move in order to move on with their life—we know that is a big aspect of this crisis—but their flat is also unrentable. The remediation work is directly impacting not only how they live, but how they can take their life forward. As the hon. Member for Ipswich suggested, that adds to the stress that many leaseholders have long suffered while anticipating the difficulties that they will face in living without access to their balcony, and with no source of natural light or ventilation.

Leaseholders recognise that that the remediation work is necessary—vital, as the hon. Member described it—but they are being asked to pay substantial amounts of money to repair faults for which they have no responsibility, and will, through those repairs, experience a substantial reduction in their quality of life over a long period. What is happening to them is obscene. It is having a very significant impact on their mental health, as the hon. Member pointed out; and as I have said, these people have already been traumatised.

The impact on mental health has been explored in a report by Dr Jenny Preece of the University of Sheffield, who also works with the UK Collaborative Centre for Housing Evidence. It published the report, entitled “Living through the building safety crisis”, at the end of last year. Dr Preece started her research before many leaseholders started to make payments or faced the impact of remedial work, but they were, at that stage, facing all the other worries, and were having to pay out for a waking watch; at Mandale House, they had to pay a substantial amount for a new alarm system. They were paying for interim measures while still uncertain about their future. It has to be said that the Government’s recent proposals will not lift the worries of most of these people.

Many leaseholders have had their whole life taken over by this crisis. One is a GP. This has completely affected his career development, because he has become almost a full-time organiser, helping the voices of those across the city who are suffering these injustices to be heard. Dr Preece’s report points out the practical impact of the worries that many people face. There are leaseholders who have a bag packed by their front door in case their building reaches the point of unsafety and they have to move out in a hurry. Another building in my area, Wicker Riverside, was evacuated before Christmas 2020 with three hours’ notice, so these are real worries.

However, the continued lack of support from the Government has meant that, for most leaseholders, the financial worry has overtaken the question of safety. That came through very powerfully in Dr Preece’s report. From her extensive interviews with leaseholders, she concluded that the negative impacts on mental wellbeing ranged from constant worry and an inability to concentrate and focus on work, to anxiety, depression and suicidal feelings. One mother wrote to me to say that her son was seriously contemplating suicide because he felt so blocked in by the crisis imposed on him.

There is real fear of a dangerous fire breaking out, but that fear, as I have said, is eclipsed by the financial impacts. The anticipation or receipt of bills that are simply unaffordable—that break people financially—has created enormous stress, alongside the day-to-day attrition of increasing costs for insurance, a waking watch and other things. All the participants in Dr Preece’s survey

“reflected on the impact…on their ability to control their own lives”.

That is a point worth reflecting on for a moment: their inability to control their life and plan for their future. Many are young people at the start of their life, planning careers and families, who are unable to move or to commit to having an extra family member in the household. That is an important point about all those life stage transitions—family planning, moving to a larger home, retirement. Some of these people have invested savings into a retirement plan and are similarly trapped. For many people, the pressures have challenged their self-perception and self-confidence, and have put a strain on relationships.

I do not want to score a party political point here—there has been a lot of cross-party unity on this issue—but the Prime Minister was recently asked on ITV about the concerns expressed by one of my constituents in Wicker Riverside, Jenni Garrett. He said she had

“a frankly unnecessary sense of anxiety”.

I challenged the Prime Minister on that point at Prime Minister’s questions, and asked him to meet Jenni so that they might explain why she and so many others were worried. I was surprised by his response. He doubled down on the assertion, and told me that it was my responsibility to tell her that her building was safe. That is shocking, but is perhaps an insight into why the Government are still failing to treat the issue with the urgency it deserves, and in the appropriate way.

Although I recognise that the recent announcement was a step forward, it does not address the commitment that the Prime Minister previously made, and which we should be committed to as parliamentarians. These people have faced an extraordinary injustice. The solution that the Government are proposing will lead to a long road of resolution for many of those affected, heaping more worry on them, as well as potential litigation that they will not be able to afford or organise. We should be taking responsibility for fixing the buildings quickly and then using the full resources of the state to hold those responsible to account and to recover the public money that we need to put in to secure the situation, so that we can live up to the commitment that the Prime Minister made at one stage—that every affected building is fixed without delay, and at no cost to leaseholders. That is what will lift their worry.