Urgent fire safety funding needed for high-rise residents

Greater Manchester’s leaders have urged Communites Secretary Sajid Javid to provide immediate funding to carry out urgent fire safety work to protect hard-pressed residents.

Writing a letter to the Department for Housing, Communities and Local Government, Mayor of Greater Manchester Andy Burnham highlighted how urgent action was neededto help local authorities, housing providers, and also leaseholders to cover the cost of fire safety works, including the removal and replacement of dangerous cladding following the Grenfell Tower tragedy.

Paul Dennett, Salford City Mayor and Chair of the Greater Manchester High Rise Taskforce, has repeatedly campaigned for ministers to provide local areas with the necessary funding to ensure the safety of high rise residents and the removal and replacement of cladding that has failed government tests as quick as possible.

The Greater Manchester High Rise Taskforce, which brings together includes landlords of tower blocks across the city region in both private and public ownership, claims that the building regulations system is not fit for purpose and needs to be overhauled.

Burnham said: “This is an issue of increasing concern and one which the government must take urgent action to resolve. Government has already failed to provide local authorities and social landlords with additional funds to carry out fire safety works and now hard-pressed residents are faced with increases in service charge bills.

“While the safety of residents living in affected buildings is rightly our priority, it is clear to me that Greater Manchester residents should not be faced with this financial burden, which is putting many at risk of hardship with flats which are in effect now worth nothing.”