COUNCILLORS IN the town ‘from across the political divide’ have united to back over 1,800 residents affected by issues relating to cladding on their blocks.
Ipswich Star reported on the ‘unanimously backed’ motion at Ipswich Borough Council’s meeting this week, which called on the government ‘to take action’ in supporting families affected by combustible cladding. Ipswich Cladiators, a local action group, said that 1,800 flats across 12 buildings in the town were ‘at risk’, and these have ‘caused knock-on problems for landlords, building owners and tenants’.
These include the ‘prohibitive costs’ of waking watch patrols, insurance premium increases of between 500% and 1,000%, fears over safety and the ‘prospect of bankruptcy’ for people whose homes ‘have effectively lost any value and are unable to be sold’. The council motion means that it will write to the government and call for costs of interim safety measures to be covered, as well as support from the building safety fund given to ‘all buildings […] regardless of height’.
It also calls for mental health support to be given to affected residents, and for the government to underwrite insurance premiums ‘as a last resort’. Labour councillor John Cook put forward the motion, and said: ‘This situation is getting worse day by day. Ipswich residents’ mental health is suffering, Ipswich residents’ financial means are suffering terribly, and the longer this goes on the more people will be driven into bankruptcy.
‘We need to prevent longer lasting harm coming to those people and of course keep our residents safe.’
In turn, Conservative leader Ian Fisher said the government measures so far were ‘a good starting point but does not go far enough’, adding: ‘It’s difficult to put yourself in the shoes of someone who goes to bed worrying every night about safety and financial impacts of paying for the remedial work.’
Finally, Liberal Democrat councillor Oliver Holmes commented: ‘The cladding scandal affects many Ipswich residents. The sad fact is the recent package of measures which has been brought forward by the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government is wholly inadequate.’
Last November, a waking watch was installed at Cardinal Lofts in the Ipswich Waterfront development after inspections ‘raised fears about fire safety’, with leaseholders ‘frustrated’ over the costs. Fire safety was ‘deemed […] so poor’ that the watch had to be installed, but leaseholders were paying £5,600 a week and over £44,000 ‘up until the end’ of 2020, as well as until a new fire alarm system was installed on the building’s top floors.
The former warehouse was converted into apartments in 2004, and a fire risk assessment (FRA) in 2018 discovered cladding ‘which needed further inspection’, with aluminium composite material suspected to ‘be present’. The 32m tall building’s issues with cladding were ‘on the top floors’, and the FRA established that there were ‘potentially large amounts of combustible materials forming part of the external wall build-up’.
In turn, the FRA found that ‘there appears to be no cavity barriers and potential poor to non-existent fire stopping in the external build-up, particularly at levels 5 and above’, with this demanding further inspection. Property managers Block Management UK wrote to leaseholders and said that the building’s owner had applied for government funding to remove and replace the cladding.
Resident Sarah Cushion, who lives in a buy to let flat in the block, said that while she understood safety was ‘the most important thing’, she had been shocked to receive a bill of nearly £400, adding: ‘That is on top of the service charge and ground rent and this is for the foreseeable future. It is also before we get to any of the costs of potentially replacing the cladding.’