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Government denies official’s claim it is ‘no longer checking’ post-Grenfell safety concern inbox
The government has denied it has stopped checking an email address set up to allow tower block residents to report safety fears in the aftermath of Grenfell, after an official said the address was “no longer in use”.
As part of its Building Safety Programme, the government had established an email address to allow residents to report concerns if they “do not feel that the issue has been sufficiently dealt with”. The address is still listed on the government website.
But this week an official at the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG) wrote to a tower block resident saying the inbox was “no longer in use” after they had asked whether it was still being checked.
The letter said: “Regarding the Housing Checks inbox, I can confirm that this inbox is no longer in use. We would encourage residents of affected buildings to speak to their building’s owner about the steps they are taking to ensure residents’ safety.”
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A spokesperson for MHCLG denied this was the case and apologised for any “confusion” caused by the letter.
They claimed that emails sent to this address were forwarded to an “individual correspondence team which will formally respond in due course”. The spokesperson added that the ministry was transitioning to a single ‘contact us’ email address for all public enquiries.
In the letter, which was sent to Danielle Gregory, a member of campaigning group Tower Blocks UK, the official had claimed that the responsibility lies with the building owner or the local authority – suggesting a belief that central government had no role in dealing with the issues.
The letter said: “The building owner or the responsible person is responsible for ensuring that any necessary checks, repairs or improvements are carried out.
“If the building owner refuses to deal with an issue or is taking an unreasonably long time to do so, residents can contact the environmental health department at their local authority.”
Ms Gregory told Inside Housing: “This is further demonstration of the government’s failure to address and take seriously their responsibilities on fire safety.”
Inside Housing’s End Our Cladding Scandal campaign calls for the government to set up a national taskforce to take control of the remediation work to buildings with dangerous cladding at a national level. It also calls for a building safety fund to help pay for it.
This would be loosely modelled on a more successful approach in Victoria, Australia, where the central state government has taken direct responsibility for investigating buildings, prioritising the work and ensuring interim measures are sufficient.
Around the country, thousands of tower blocks are believed to be affected – but the official remediation programme is focusing narrowly on buildings above 18m with aluminium composite material cladding.
Among these, 318 of 436 are yet to complete the necessary work despite a government promise that it would complete by the end of the year.
