You are viewing 1 of your 1 free articles
Construction of new tower blocks should be stopped until their safety can be assured and the government should consider tearing down rather than repairing those with faults.
This is the view of the Housing & Finance Institute (HFI), an influential thinktank set up by the government in 2015 to provide assistance to councils seeking to develop.
Natalie Elphicke, chief executive of the HFI, today called for the moratorium on tower block starts as part of a report on high-rise safety published today.
The organisation also claimed existing tower blocks should be reviewed to decide whether they should be repaired or demolished.
Sajid Javid, cabinet secretary for communities and local government, told parliament yesterday that all 75 high rises that had so far undergone fire safety tests had failed.
Speaking at Housing 2017 today, Ms Elphicke said it is time to “urgently review” the future of tower blocks.
She said: “Not only should we enact an immediate pause on the construction of new blocks that haven’t yet started, but we should actively consider whether we would be better off simply demolishing the existing buildings identified as being at risk instead of repairing them.”
She argued that “an end to high-rise” would not reduce the number of homes built because the majority of housing delivery takes place outside of big city centres, and other types of development could see high levels of building.
“Building at greater densities and accelerating construction outside of the cities can deliver the one million new homes we need by 2022 – without risking a repetition of the horrific fire at Grenfell that cost so many lives.”