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L&Q’s fire safety work expected to rise above £50m
L&Q’s eventual cost of fire safety works is expected to rise above the £50m put aside to cover replacement cladding in its blocks, the association’s chief operating officer has told Inside Housing.
Andy Brown said that the full cost of the works was still to be determined, but that it would be expected to rise after L&Q expanded its fire safety provision to cover housing blocks which were clad in other materials than those used on Grenfell Tower.
The housing association took action earlier this month after a housing block in Elephant and Castle was found to have a number of significant fire safety issues.
Mr Brown said: “With regard to the £50m over three years, we are expecting to put more money aside. At the moment we are working with the contractor to make the building safe as quickly as possible.”
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Tenants and leaseholders at the 54-home Arch Street scheme, which was built for L&Q by Willmott Dixon in 2011, are to be moved into alternative accommodation while works, which include replacing the cladding on the building, take place.
According to L&Q, the decision to decant was taken after an independent fire engineer visited the property and identified a number of issues with the external wall system which needed to be addressed, including the high-pressure laminate cladding, insulation behind the cladding and method of installation.
A spokesperson for L&Q said: “L&Q has more than 200 tower blocks over six storeys tall where we have responsibility for carrying out regular fire risk assessments. We will also carry out enhanced ‘intrusive’ assessments in many of these buildings, according to the latest government guidance issued in December.”
News of residents being moved out of the L&Q block comes a week after residents at a Catalyst-owned housing scheme in north London were asked to leave after fire safety issues were found.
End Our Cladding Scandal: full coverage
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- Residents evacuated after fire at block with Grenfell-style cladding: Residents of Vallea Court in Manchester are forced to flee after a fire breaks out in a lift shaft
- Leaseholders in London block pay nearly £3.5m for cladding removal: Despite promises from ministers to protect leaseholders, residents of the M&M Buildings near Paddington have been told to pay out
- Minister's will have blood on their hands if another death occurs, says MP: A round-up of the parliamentary debate on providing funding to remove dangerous cladding
- Sector leaders call for an end to the cladding scandal: backers of the campaign explain why they are calling on the government to end the scandal
- #EndOurCladdingScandal – campaign launch sees cladding stories go viral: a round-up of the Twitter reaction to the launch of our campaign
- Revealed: the mental health trauma of residents in blocks with dangerous cladding: read about the mental health impacts of dangerous cladding on high rises
- Victims of the cladding scandal: read the stories of some of those impacted by the crisis
- Why we need a cladding fund for private buildings: Manchester Council chief executive Joanne Roney explains why a fund to pay for cladding removal is necessary
- Why Inside Housing is joining with leaseholders to call for an end to the cladding scandal: our deputy editor Peter Apps on why we are supporting the campaign
- End our cladding scandal: the campaign’s aims and backers
