You are viewing 1 of your 1 free articles
Council repeats fire safety funding request after CIPFA warning
A council that was refused government funding help to pay for retrofit of sprinklers in its high rises has repeated its request.
Nottingham City Council is asking for £8.5m to install sprinklers in its 13 tower blocks.
Inside Housing revealed in September that it was turned down for the same request by former housing minister Alok Sharma, who called the measures “additional rather than essential”.
But it has sent a renewed call for financial support for the work after a warning from the public sector accountancy body on Monday.
The Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accountancy (CIPFA) said that local government borrowing rules mean councils taking out loans to pay for sprinklers will be forced to cut back on other housing spending unless ministers step in.
Nottingham said it had asked government for the money “on several occasions” since the Grenfell Tower fire on 14 June 2017, but received “no offer of support at all, including no offer of extra borrowing”.
READ MORE
“It is disappointing that you have continued to deny requests for funding for fire safety works, despite public assurances to the contrary,” Jane Urquhart, cabinet member for housing at Nottingham City Council said in a letter to new housing minister Dominic Raab.
“The government recognises the lifesaving benefits that sprinklers can provide, and has said money will not stand in in the way of vital safety work, but has so far turned down our requests for funding.
“We are now requesting that at the very least it adjusts our HRA [Housing Revenue Account] debt cap so that, as CIPFA recognises, other important housing improvements and developments – which the government also wants us to carry out – can still go ahead.”
Ministers have repeatedly said they will not let a lack of funds prevent “essential” fire safety work from going ahead.
Housing secretary Sajid Javid told a committee of MPs in October last year that he was considering giving extra HRA borrowing flexibilities to councils to fund fire safety work. He was also considering requests from “one or two” for a one-off transfer to be made from their general funds into their HRA, which is normally ringfenced.
However, he said it was not planning to provide grants for works.
Nottingham intends to push ahead with its sprinkler programme in spring.
It said extra borrowing headroom would provide annual subsidy to cover interest costs on an £8.5m loan to pay for the sprinklers, meaning it will not have to compromise on other housing spending.
