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From the archive - concerns over safety in tower blocks
Inside Housing looks back at what was happening in the sector this week 10, 20 and 30 years ago
30 years ago
A high-rise tenants’ project called on the government to improve safety in tower blocks.
The System-Built and Tower Block Housing Project was angered by a British Research Establishment study which said that large panel dwellings showed no signs of distress “sufficient to give concern for the safety of people”. The tenants’ group said tenants and local authorities felt it “[dismissed] the reality for those living in tower blocks”.
The project said gas supplies were removed from all tower blocks following the Ronan Point disaster, in which four people died after a gas explosion, but “tenants faced with inefficient heating and escalating bills often turn to bottled gas as a solution, and with it the risk of explosion”.
They said fire guidelines for the maintenance of large-panel system dwellings were needed.
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20 years ago
New housing association tenants were to be £1.80 a week worse off after Hilary Armstrong’s decision to cut the social housing grant rate by 2%.
The housing minister’s decision to drop the headline grant rate for 1998/99 to 54% was greeted with dismay by housing chief executives, who claimed it contradicted Labour’s rhetoric about affordability.
Ms Armstrong said: “One of the government’s key priorities is to reduce housing benefit dependency, and the level of rents charged by registered social landlords is an important factor in achieving this.”
She claimed falls in long-term interest rates meant associations could deliver lower rents and maintain output while receiving less capital subsidy per home.
Average rent on a new property in 1998/99 was to be 3% higher than in 1996/97, Ms Armstrong claimed.
Her defence of the cut contrasted with former housing spokesperson Nick Raynsford’s attacks on the previous year’s 2% rent reduction. He said: “This further reduction in grant rate will force additional increases in rents and result in more housing association tenants being forced into dependency.”
10 years ago
The debate over the safety of timber-framed housing construction methods was being reopened after a blaze took hold of 84 flats being developed by Metropolitan.
The fire ripped through the unfinished timber-framed development. It came after a blaze destroyed part-built timber-framed accommodation in Colindale the previous summer. A report by the Fire Protection Association into that incident questioned whether the method should be used for high rises.
Separately, the government had received hundreds of complaints about the private companies awarded contracts to supply accommodation for asylum seekers.
The volume was so large that the Home Office refused to release details of the complaints.
