Thousands of Londoners are living in unsafe and overcrowded homes, due to cladding and other fire safety defects.
Earlier this year, the London Assembly revealed that waking watches – when a person patrols all floors and external areas of a building to give warning in the event of a fire – are costing these Londoners over £16,000 an hour. Since the Grenfell Tower fire, waking watches are used in buildings that are at high risk, to help prevent another tragedy until dangerous cladding is removed.
The London Assembly has today agreed to call on the Mayor to write urgently to the Secretary of State for Housing asking him to amend the Building Safety Bill.
Anne Clarke AM, who proposed the motion said:
“It shouldn’t be up to leaseholders to fix the cladding scandal or to foot the bill for it by having to cover the costs of soaring insurance premiums and waking watches.
“We also shouldn’t be seeing the responsibility for handling this crisis being laid at the feet of the London Fire Brigade. And yet in the face of funding cuts, our already overstretched firefighters are having to deal with the pressures of carrying out thousands of additional hours of fire safety inspections each month.
“We need to see an urgent amendment made to the Building Safety Bill to take away the financial burden being faced by leaseholders, alongside giving our firefighters the resources, they need to deal with the crisis at hand”.
The full text of the amended motion is:
“This Assembly calls on the Mayor to write urgently to the Secretary of State for Housing asking him to amend the Building Safety Bill to protect leaseholders and tenants in buildings of all sizes from costs as a result of EWS1 forms, remediation and mitigations (including waking watches and common alarm systems) in buildings where dangerous cladding or other fire safety defects are present. This Assembly also asks the Mayor to make representations to the Government to meet the increased financial burdens being placed on fire brigades in London and across the country who are undertaking additional building safety checks.”
Notes to editors
- Watch the full webcast.
- The motion was agreed unanimously.
- Anne Clarke AM who proposed the motion, is available for interviews.
- As well as investigating issues that matter to Londoners, the London Assembly acts as a check and a balance on the Mayor.
For media enquiries, please contact Aoife Nolan on 07849 303 897. For out of hours media enquiries, call 020 7983 4000 and ask for the London Assembly duty press officer.