Nine Ems protest 21 August 2021. Photo (and fantastic speech!) by Reece Lipman
The Nine Elms protest made the BBC News website and served to highlight the building safety crisis and and the wider housing crisis. Insurmountable cladding bills, estate managers ignoring broken fire alarms, construction defects, “affordable” housing residents being denied access to basic facilities – All of the companies present in one way or another in Nine Elms have been notorious for this. Protesters were joined by Wandsworth Housing Action and local Wandsworth Labour Councillor Maurice McLeod as well as Tony O’Brien from Hazards. Great to see you there! Action on Fire Safety Justice is a force to be reckoned with!
Newsnight covered the fire safety issue in full, it took up the WHOLE programme, and gave a platform to leaseholders facing life changing bills.
Nine Elms is like a whirlpool of developers and housing associations who are complicit in both the building safety crisis and in a wider housing crisis. Insurmountable cladding bills, estate managers ignoring broken fire alarms, construction defects, “affordable” housing residents being denied access to basic facilities – All of the companies present in one way or another in Nine Elms have been notorious for this.
Action on Fire Safety Justice ask for your support!
Homes for All is supporting Action for Fire Safety Justice, which held a successful day of action at developer showrooms in June and a demonstration at Downing Street in July.
Hundreds of thousands of leaseholders across England & Wales are being forced to pay thousands of pounds for interim measures and remedial work to make their homes safe because of building safety issues they could not possibly have known about before purchasing.
As well as living with the knowledge that their homes are unsafe to live in, leaseholders – many first time buyers with young families, who have purchased their homes through the Government-backed Affordable Home Schemes – also face crippling insurance premiums, huge costs for interim measures and bills in the thousands of pounds to carry out the remedial work. Until the work is done, the flats are unsaleable – meaning that leaseholders are trapped in limbo, unable to sell, remortgage or “staircase”.
Affected leaseholders, tenants and their supporters in the group Action for Fire Safety Justice are holding a demonstration at Nine Elms, Battersea, SW8 on Saturday 21st August at 12:00 Noon, to demand that those responsible for the Building Safety Scandal pay to resolve the issues they caused and reimburse leaseholders for the thousands of pounds they have already paid.
Developers with new developments at Nine Elms include Barratts, Bellway, Berkeley, Ballymore and Taylor Wimpey who all have developments with fire safety issues. Three of these developers have had serious fires occur on other developments they built in the last 2 years. Nine Elms is also home to the now infamous suspended swimming pool, the Sky Pool, built by Ballymore, which launched within weeks of the horrific fire at its New Providence Wharf development a short distance away.
Action for Fire Safety Justice demands
NO MORE GRENFELLS Our homes must be made safe immediately – before new homes are built! And no more homes should be built using flammable materials. #JusticeForGrenfell WE CANNOT PAY Those responsible for building our homes with flammable materials must pay to fix the problems they caused! DEVELOPERS MUST PAY! Bellway, Barratts, Ballymore, Berkeley, Taylor Wimpey… must all pay to fix the building safety defects they caused and replace the flammable materials they used to build our homes.
EDM (Early Day Motion)286 was tabled on 06 July 2021. It says:
That this House notes with deepest regret that 8 July 2021 marks the tragic death of June Harvey after a tower crane fell on her house in Bow in 2020; further notes with sadness other fatalities as a result of crane collapses; pays tribute to the construction safety campaign, largely led by bereaved relatives and trade unions, raising concerns about the under-regulation of health and safety in the construction industry amidst a reduction in inspections and reductions in the Health and Safety Executive’s resources, particularly since 2010; and calls on the Government to ensure that legislation and guidance regulating cranes are robust and that the HSE has the resources for vigorous enforcement.
It has been signed by 13 MPs so far. You are urged to contact your MP to ask them to sign it.
Demonstrators in Wales, Leeds and Chelmsford keep up the pressure for government to end the cladding scandal
https://twitter.com/i/status/1415641741668061187
A wave of protests across the country greeted the first reading of the Building Safety Bill, which does next to nothing to help leaseholders facing life-changing bills for fire safety remediation. The Action for Fire Safety Justice group helped to coordinate the protests and pledged to continue them until their demands are met.
ITV Report from Leeds protest, with interview with Hilary Benn MP, Saturday 17 June.
The Protest in Wales on Saturday was joined by two Cardiff politicians
Meanwhile a flashmob descended on the Novello sales centre in Chelmsford, including Chelmsford TUC, where protesters were able to speak to six potential buyers and let them know that Bellway was still building homes with flammable cladding. Given that the protest was not advertised beforehand, the turnout was pretty impressive!
Chelmsford showroom protest, 17 July 2021
Steve Day from Polluter Pays Bill joined our Homes for All meeting the same day and we agreed to publicise the campaign here. Steve wrote to us:
“The Building Safety Bill is the Government’s last chance to remedy this grave injustice of the Building Safety Crisis by implementing a solution that places the burden of dealing with the crisis on the shoulders of those who caused it. Only legislation can make those developers that built unsafe buildings pay for the cost of their failures. They took the profits and now must be made to compensate their innocent victims. If no action is taken, the slow drumroll of forfeitures, evictions, bankruptcies, mounting mental health problems, and even suicides will be placed at the Government’s door.
Campaigners with the help of experts and counsel have devised and pushed forward a Polluter Pays Bill which the government are actively considering to include in the Building Safety Bill. The proposal, is based on existing environmental legislation, where a wide pool of those responsible for causing the problem in the first place bear the responsibility to cover the costs of putting it right – in this case, placing the responsibility with developers, subcontractors, materials suppliers and architects, as opposed to innocent leaseholders or the taxpayer.
The proposal has already won the backing of 14 cross party back benchers and 4 peers and has been tabled twice in Parliament, but not yet debated on. Campaigners are urging Government to add these clauses to the Building Safety Bill, as it will bring in much needed consumer protection for buildings common to many other kinds of purchases. It takes the burden away from innocent leaseholders for pursuing litigation, doesn’t require tax payer funds and doesn’t make other innocent parties pay to bail out the construction industry’s failures. It will also free up existing funding for non-defective buildings and where no responsible party can be found.
In the end, it has to be right for all those that breach building regulations be made to pay in full for fixing their mistakes. This bill will achieve that, the government have a moral duty to include it. How you can help!
1) Write and get everyone you know to write to their MPs to urge the government to include Polluter Pays In the Building Safety Bill.
2) Get pressure groups onboard with the bill. This is the fight of a generation for future building as well as clearing up the mess of the last 20 years.
Islington’s Lead Councillor for Housing joins protesters to demand the Ministry of Justice allow the Council to house the homeless in former prison flats.
We are calling everyone who can make it down to support this important protest.
The Building Safety Bill is getting a hearing this week, but it doesn’t protect leaseholders, it protects developers. We must demand that developers pay, not innocent leaseholders, and that tenants and leaseholders have the right to safe, secure housing NOW. Action for Fire Safety Justice is the group that organised the developer showroom protests on 5th June. Now we are supporting them as they take the fight to 10 Downing Street.
Action for Fire Safety Justice – Fire Safety Crisis Protest
Grenfell United called a silent march on the day and in an incredibly moving display of solidarity and anger, people across the country came together for vigils and protests to stand with the bereaved and survivors and to remember the 72 lost lives.
A common theme of the protests was that the real perpetrators of social murder are getting away with it, but innocent people remain trapped in unsafe homes and in some cases forced to pay thousands to make their own buildings safe. There is no reason to suppose that another Grenfell tragedy will be avoided. It is only a matter of time.
At Homes for All we are proud to be part of the continuing fight for justice for Grenfell and the struggle to make all housing safe, without the huge financial costs being passed on to the leaseholders, and in some cases, the tenants. The Grenfell fire was the result of a thoroughly corrupt system of housing in this country, where the profits of construction firms, manufacturers, developers and landlords are the main priority, safety comes a poor second and the government ensures they keep getting away with it through a totally inadequate regulatory regime.
We owe a debt of gratitude to the Grenfell community for fighting to get these facts into the open. We will fight on.
Agenda 1. #EndOurCladdingScandal showroom protest day report (5 June) and next steps 2. Grenfell 4th anniversary actions Monday14th June 3. Campaign Against Empty Homes Day of Action (2nd October) and local reports on empty homes 4. Evictions (moratorium ended 31 May?) 5. Cllr Diarmaid Ward will attend to discuss requisitioning 6. AOB
