Following the fire at the Bolton Student Tower Block on Friday night,Labour’s Shadow Housing Minister has written to the Housing Secretary outlining a 12 questions that require an urgent response.
Sarah Jones writes:
“Two and a half years after Grenfell it simply beggars belief that the Government has left eight in ten buildings covered in the same deadly cladding. And it is equally astounding that you neither know how many other types of deadly cladding exist, nor how many buildings are wrapped in it.”
She writes regarding the Grenfell style cladding:
“Figures reveal that at the current rate, the social sector will not be made safe until October 2022 and private blocks until October 2033. How do you intend on getting this programme of work back on target?”
She also challenges the Government on what they knew about the HPL cladding, the cladding that on the side of the Bolton tower block:
“Labour has been warning since July 2017 that the cladding crisis was not limited to ACM cladding. It took your Government two years to admit that High Pressure Laminate (HPL) was too dangerous to be kept on buildings. Can you corroborate what is indicated by planning documents, that the cladding on the block in Bolton is the same Trespa brand as the failed fire test shown to your department in November 2018”
She calls for action to remove all dangerous types of cladding:
“Following a large-scale British Standards test on all non-ACM cladding samples, will you commit to immediately ordering the removal of all cladding which fails the tests?
