More than 18 months after a De Beauvoir Town flat was valued worthless due to dangerous cladding, a planning application has finally been submitted to replace the hazardous building exterior.
The planning application will reach the next step of the process at the beginning of next week, after a time allowance for comments or objections.
After 72 people lost their lives in the 2017 Grenfell Tower tragedy, cladding became a major concern for flat owners and residents. The exterior of Downham Wharf, made of high-pressure laminate (HPL), was rated to have a combustibility rating of D, or a ‘medium contribution to fire’.
This led to both a dangerous living environment and “distressing uncertainty” for the residents, according to Cllr Polly Billington.
HPL cladding is the same material that covered a Bolton student block which caught fire in November 2019. Following this, De Beauvoir couple Dan Gilson and Rhiannon Robertson revealed the cladding reduced their house value to £0 in an interview with the BBC in February 2020.
In the March 2020 budget, the government announced that it would provide £1 billion in funding between 2020 and 2021 to “support the remediation of unsafe… cladding systems on residential buildings 18 metres and over”.
According to the ward council, the buildings’ developer, L&Q, is waiting for confirmation of a government grant before proceeding with the work.
