Grenfell: Arconic Boss Says Fire Safety Tests Were Not His 'Priority'

The boss of the company that made the Grenfell Tower cladding has said it was not his "priority" to understand fire safety tests and certificates. Claude Schmidt, president of Arconic, told the inquiry into the fire that he only learned about a key British fire safety standard after the disaster. It also heard claims the French firm "arranged" for some fire tests to pass. Arconic is being investigated for not informing a British standards board about failed tests. Read more on the BBC website.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-56089596

Gas Services Contractor Embroiled In ALMO Safety Saga Closed Down

The parent company of a contractor involved with a contract at a Kent ALMO that saw hundreds of gas safety checks incomplete has shut down its gas services operations. In a trading update, heating, electrical and building services provider Bilby plc said it closed P&R Installations Company’s gas servicing division in July, with its remaining “ongoing profitable building services contracts” shifted onto Purdy, another subsidiary of Bilby. Read more on Inside Housing.

https://www.insidehousing.co.uk/news/gas-services-contractor-embroiled-in-almo-safety-saga-closed-down-62656?utm_source=Housing60&utm_medium=email&utm_content=article_link&utm_campaign=H60

The Government Has Launched A National Survey To Gain Tenants Views On Social Housing

The Social Tenant Engagement Questionnaire aims to highlight any issues or concerns following the Grenfell tragedy, and the results used to share good practice and inform the government’s future policy. The online questionnaire covers the following issues:

•        managing complaints and redress routes

•        social tenants’ voices being heard

•        ensuring good and consistent quality services from landlords

•        safety of tenants

All the responses will be read by the Government and feed into their new social housing policy paper, to be published by the end of Spring 2018. Read more on South Essex Homes website.

Public Believes Housing Inspections Should Be In Hands Of Council

The majority of the public believes housing safety inspections should be in the hands of local councils, survey reveals. A survey for the Association for Public Service Excellence (APSE) found 59% of the public support council Building Inspections, and just 23.4% support private inspectors. The poll, which was carried out by market research agency Survation for APSE, was a ‘wake up call to Government’, APSE chief executive Paul O’Brien, told a housing fringe at the Labour Party conference. ‘The public clearly support a role for local councils in keeping residents safe,’ he said. Read more on the Local Gov website.

Council Housing: Repairs and Maintenance – Parliamentary Written Answer

Andrew Gwynne: To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, what criteria will be used to access whether local authorities are able to afford the refurbishment costs associated with ensuring that their properties are safe.
Alok Sharma: It is the landlord’s responsibility to ensure that people are safe, and cost considerations should not get in the way of this. Where work is necessary to ensure the fire safety of social housing, we will ensure that lack of financial resources will not prevent it going ahead.

Social Landlords Call For Clarity On Cladding Safety

Social landlords have called for “greater clarity” over whether Aluminium Composite Material (ACM) panels on tower blocks could be safe despite failing the government’s combustibility test. The government said its independent expert fire safety panel will consider “early next week” whether ACM panels can be used safely as part of a wider external wall system “and therefore could remain on a building under certain approved circumstances”. Grenfell Tower was believed to have ACM panels with a polyethylene core. A number of landlords have already torn down cladding from their tower blocks after it failed the government’s combustibility test. Read more on Inside Housing.

8 Things You Didn’t Know About Private Landlords

Shelter recently commissioned YouGov to carry out the biggest and most representative survey of landlords for five years. Here are a selection of the survey’s top findings about landlords.

·         More than 40% of landlords are mortgage free

·         Only 6% of landlords rent themselves

·         Almost 60% of landlords only let out one home

·         Not many are accredited or in a trade body

·         Nearly two thirds of landlords don’t like to take people on housing benefit

·         Almost half are less likely to rent to people they think are immigrants in the future

·         Half of landlords are having regular electrical safety checks

·         Most landlords are open to the idea of offering longer tenancies

Read more on the Shelter blog.