Building Safety Update

Our ongoing focus on fire and building safety ensures this remains a top priority.  

Our promise to you is to keep you updated on a regular basis - every three months. However, if you do not wish to receive these updates, you can unsubscribe from this newsletter. If there is a specific update related to your block, you will receive an update by letter and via your notice board. We are also holding a range of residents’ meetings where work is planned or underway.    

Update on Government legislation

Government announces new building safety measures

On Monday 10 January 2022, the Secretary of State for Levelling-Up, Housing and Communities, Michael Gove, announced a series of measures concerning building safety.

In his announcement Mr Gove made a guarantee that no leaseholders living in a building over 11 metres will have to pay to fix unsafe cladding. They will also receive new statutory protection within the Building Safety Bill and will have the right to challenge those who caused defects up to 30 years retrospectively. 

As part of the 4-point plan to reset the Government’s approach to building safety, the next phase of the Building Safety Fund will open early this year. It will be risk-driven and will be delivered quickly. The Government will also allocate an additional £27m for fire alarms to put an end to the use of waking watches.

It is proposed that grant funding guidance will be changed so that shared owners affected by the crisis can more easily sublet their properties. Landlords and lenders will be encouraged to improve subletting arrangements.

In addition, those at fault will be held properly to account with a new team being established to expose and pursue those who are responsible.

The Government will now advise assessors to follow new guidance that has been developed by the British Standard Institute, called PAS 9980. It will be used to carry out statutory assessments of external walls of blocks and will take a more risk-based approach to danger. Assessments will be audited to make sure that remediation is only required where it is necessary.

Our priority is, and always has been, the safety of our residents. We are now awaiting further guidance on what the next steps will be, and we will update you as soon as we receive more information.

If you have any concerns, questions, or complaints about the safety of your home, please contact us by calling 0300 123 9966 or emailing ask@onehousing.co.uk. Please put “Building safety” in the subject line.

Update on our work at One Housing

Our Cladding Remediation Programme

Sometimes the intrusive surveys we carry out show that corrective work to the building’s external wall system is required.

We are doing everything we can to ensure that we minimise the cost of any remediation works. We have made 28 Building Safety Fund applications to the Government to obtain the funds to carry out external wall system remediation work.  

We currently have 12 remediation projects underway that cover 21 buildings. One of these is being completed by the original developer.

We are in regular contact with residents in the blocks and developments affected to keep them up to date on progress and we will continue to keep residents up to date as soon as we hear any further news on the outcome of our application. 

Update on EWS1 forms to help homeowners move on

The EWS1 form is produced by an external wall surveyor, following an EWS assessment.

It takes an average of eight to twelve weeks from the survey until we get the written report. However due to the professional indemnity insurance and shortage of qualified fire engineers, this is taking substantially longer. Once completed, we share a summary of the report with the residents in the block/developments.

We have now issued 97 compliant EWS1 certificates for buildings, helping those that have been unable to sell, now do so.

If you are waiting for an EWS1 form for your building because it has an external wall cladding system, it does not mean that your building is unsafe.  We carry out regular fire risk assessments that highlight any works that might be required, as well as routine visual checks of communal areas to ensure there are no fire hazards.

Fire safety update

We know that fire safety is a critical concern for our residents.

Fire data provided to the Home Office by the fire and rescue services shows that dwelling fires attended by fire and rescue services in England have reduced by more than a quarter over the last decade.

Fires in homes in high rise buildings in England are rare, representing only 3% of all domestic fires. Despite this, we continue to make fire safety improvements to our properties, including investigating the external wall systems (cladding, insulation, cavity barriers etc.) and removing unsafe cladding.

We work closely with Savills, independent fire risk specialists, to carry out regular Fire Risk Assessments (FRA) of the communal areas of all our buildings, such as the stairways and the corridors. The frequency of how often this happens depends on the type of building and the building history.

Savills produce the FRA with all the information they have gathered and record any recommendations or actions for us to review first.

We then put in place an action plan to carry out any necessary works which reduces the chances of a fire starting and spreading in a building. We are pleased to confirm that all our buildings with communal areas under our responsibility have current fire risk assessments.

Residents can request a copy of the FRA for their building at any time. However, as we want to make sure that we provide this information to you in the most clear and helpful way, we are currently working on providing these via our website. Please watch this space for more information. 

Fire safety is a shared responsibility between us and you. There are things that you can do to reduce the risk of fire. Please visit our fire safety page for more information on what you can do to protect yourself and your home. Alternatively, visit your local fire service website for more information.

If you notice any problems with any fire safety features in your block, such as communal fire doors no longer closing or things are being stored in corridors or staircases, please call 0300 123 9966 or email ask@onehousing.co.uk. Please include “Fire Safety” in the subject line.

Balcony fire safety

Balcony fires are a serious issue for fire and rescue services across the country, and in the last three years to 2020, there have been more than 550 balcony fires in London alone.

If a fire breaks out on your balcony, it could spread much faster than a fire inside your building. Flaming embers can fall onto other balconies below and the heat and flames from a fire can ignite items on balconies above, which can spread the fire to wider areas of the building much quicker.

For these reasons, it is essential that we all do everything we can to reduce the risk of fires on balconies. You can help to keep you, your families, and your neighbours safe by following these tips.

• Don’t store any combustible items on your balcony. These include sheds or storage boxes, wooden furniture, screening or matting of any description, rubbish or recycling, fuel, gas cylinders or flammable liquids.
• Don’t use barbecues on your balcony. They pose a serious fire risk and falling embers could set light to balconies below you or even injure people below.
• Always make sure cigarettes or any other smoking materials are completely extinguished using a proper ashtray and not a plastic cup. Never drop cigarettes over the side of your balcony as the wind can take these to other balconies below or even on to other buildings.

If you store any combustible or flammable materials on your balcony, please remove them as soon as possible. As a responsible landlord, we are committed to reducing fire safety risk in our flat blocks and therefore we will not hesitate to undertake any necessary action to address the risk posed by combustible storage to protect all residents.

If you need any assistance with removing anything, please let us know by calling 0300 123 9966 or emailing ask@onehousing.co.uk.