Thread by @lewis_goodall

Yesterday we broadcast the latest of our pieces on the building safety crisis. So often it's supposed the costs for leaseholders are arising as a result of changes in building safety law now. But it can also be about a failure in building safety which goes back decades.

https://twitter.com/lewis_goodall/status/1402743853682249728

Leaseholders at Transport House, as in many other places, believe that their building did not necessarily comply with building regulations even when it was built- in 2004. If so, it adds another layer of deep injustice to an already unjust story. Are they right to be concerned?

To try to answer that we have to go back to the relevant building regulations as they were then-the 2000 building regulations, which on fire spread said: “The external walls of the building shall adequately..."

"...resist the spread of fire over the walls and from one building to another having regard to the height, use and position of the building.”

Now one of the reasons leaseholders are being quoted £100,000 a piece for work is because the freeholder thinks flame could spread...

...too easily through the building as is. Around the facade of TH is a render. Two layers below that is something called rockwool -a material designed to be a fire cavity barrier, to keep a fire contained to one bit of the building should one break out. The problem is what’s...

...in between, a thin layer of EPS polystyrene, used to create a smooth finish on the render. It is this, which is combustible, that we are told by experts effectively renders the fire cavity barrier ineffective.

A fire cavity barrier is what contains a fire to one...

...bit of the building, at least for while, in time for the fire brigade to arrive. Unsatisfactory barriers are at the heart of many leaseholder cases across the country.

This gets complicated but accompanying the building regs is a govt document...

...called Approved Document B (ADB). This is guidance which sets out how developers can meet their regulatory obligations. The ADB from 2000 has lots of reference to fire cavity barriers and says this is a way of meeting those obligations.

In a letter to leaseholders seen by NN, Irwell Valley (the freeholder) confirms it has concerns about the cavity barriers in place saying their "investigations identified that there are insufficient fire cavity barriers around windows and party wall junctions.”

In minutes of a meeting between leaseholders IV on 10/06, again seen by NN, a leaseholder questioned IV about this issue and whether the lack of effective fire breaks meant the building did not meet regs- Irwell said that is an "integral" part of their investigation.

Newsnight has also seen a presentation on Transport House based on work by the Construction Consultancy firm BWP.

In it they refer to ADB and they note that the guidance is clear that “cavity barriers should be provided."

Cavity barriers aren't the only way the developers...

...could have met the regulations, they could have installed something which did the same job as the cavity barriers.

On several occasions we asked the developer, Lovells to explain how in their assessment they met their regulatory requirements in Transport House especially...

with regards to the fact the EPS is there. We asked whether they believed the breaks were effective and if not what else they'd done to create an equivalent measure. They didn’t answer any of those specific questions. They did say:

“The design and construction of Transport..."

"... House met the relevant Building Regulations in force at the time, more than 16 years ago and the relevant Building Control Completion Certificate was issued, which provides evidence that the Local Authority Building Control was satisfied that compliance had been achieved.”

But that might not mean as much as it might seem for two reasons.

1) Experts at the top of the building industry have told us it is not at all uncommon for developments not to be built as plans specified. To investigate whether that happened here we asked the Freeholder for a...

...copy of the original plans, they didn't provide them- indeed leaseholders have been told they've been lost. We asked the developer if they always intended to put a layer of EPS in the building and whether the original plans were followed. Again, no answer. We asked the...

...council for a copy of the original plans but they will take time to locate as they are currently being kept in archives (I kid you not) in a salt mine.

But regardless of this question there's reason no (2) and this is where it again broadens out to the rest of the country- the fact the building scrutiny regime is very poor and has been so for a long time.

The system has been deregulated over decades. Checks can be patchy or even non-existent. The days of the all powerful Clerk of Works on site from the council are long gone. Local authorities' resources are stretched. So just saying (as developers in all these cases do)...

...that the building in question received sign off doesn't not necessarily guarantee that it was compliant.

This failed regulatory regime was at the centre of the Hackitt Report of 2018. In it she said the system was characterised by...

1) “Ignorance” about the rules which were too complex
(2) indifference – “with developers motivated by cost alone
(3) “lack of clarity” on roles and responsibilities within the regulatory framework
(4) Inadequate regulatory oversight and enforcement tools

All of which Dame Judith said had created a “race to the bottom in development” in Britain's construction industry.

All of this compounds the plight of thousands and thousands of leaseholders across the country. That in some cases at least it is poor standards in...

...in construction, not retrospective changes, which is causing them so much cost and heartache now. Remember there is no government money available for non-cladding issues and in many cases the statute of limitations on the buildings have expired.

One expert I spoke to said the national part of this story is a scandal which stretches across thirty years under govts of every colour- a perfect mix of poor governance, poor corporate practice, politicians at local and national level taking their eye off the ball.

In the case of TH we can't say with certainty what happened yet and in many cases the rules are sufficiently vague to give developers leeway. What we can say is that if the guidance (not necessarily regulation) had been followed exactly much of the cost of the leaseholders...

...would may not have been incurred. In any case, in the national story, experts in the industry do tell us that the "race to the bottom" in standards in development Dame Judith identified is a key part of this story and one for which there is insufficient accountability...

...from developers.

At the heart of this multilayered extraordinary story is a simple fact- the only people with no questions to answer are the leaseholders. And yet it is they who nearly every time, are paying the price.