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Cladding For Dummies
With respect to all, VIMTO tried to fully understand the cladding issue(s), the situation, and what is going on now on the Cladding Scandal Front but between the barrage of articles and tweets and one day of excitements and plenty of disappointments. It is very hard as the issues mixed between politicians, policies, and politics to understand and this is our understanding and what we make of this big issue (s) as of today February 9, 2021, and will be more than happy if anyone can correct our understanding or highlight it more then everyone including us not familiar or not understand the issue (s) it will be a great help to all :
Our understanding is :
There is a bad conservatives government formed of Conservative Party MPs, lead by Boris Johnson. This government standing with the baddies and the rich ( Developers, Landlords, Construction Companies to name ) against the poor leaseholders, who could not afford to buy houses ( mainly freehold purchase ), and instead they have to buy leaseholds flats ( Majority of 2 bedroom flats ). After hard work, collecting & saving money, penny by penny, and competing with worldwide foreign property buyers as seen in London and then everywhere else in England / UK like this link for Manchester ( https://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/greater-manchester-news/revealed-scale-foreign-ownership-real-13880968 )
However, some Conservatives MPs are standing with the leaseholders against the government on principle and they loved by the leaseholders of course and they may be compromising their future as politicians.
Then, there is an opposition Lib Dems party that formed an alliance with a previous conservatives government and they were in government when some of these defective blocks of flats built.
Now, the good news most if not all Lib Dems MPs are in support of the leaseholders, the bad news there are only 10 or 11 of them. Not here or there to do anything much to help.
Then there is the main opposition party, The Labour Party, also some of the defective buildings were built while they were in government. No one sure when they will be in power again and form the government, they need to swing 80+ seats before they can do that and according to records this is not done before, it is very hard or unlikely to happen soon, especially the Labour party is split into two mini parties (Left & Right) wrapped under one name, The Labour Party.
The Labour Party leader, Keir Starmer, has spoken in support of the leaseholders after a long wait
https://twitter.com/ivan_tokmenin/status/1352574186028470272
and now the many Labour MPs came in support of the leaseholders, not just a few MPs. Leaseholders have to wait maybe not three years but at least 7 years before the labour party forms a government. Then If everything is right and there is enough money left by Rishi Sunakand no financial problems exist then despite everything else around like the Corona, Brexit, and maybe Scotland to name then the new government can give the leaseholders more than the moral support, the financial support that the poor leaseholders need desperately need to be compensated for their losses.
Have the labour party made a commitment to leaseholders when in power they will compensate them for every penny lost because of this issue (s)? Not yet
This issue is called Cladding Scandal which is a misleading name and completely false name as in reality it is Cladding, External & internal Walls, Wall cavity, Wall insulations, Fire-rated doors, Safety, Fire alarms, Construction, Walk watch, Manufacturers, Regulators, Inspectors, Leaseholders, Government, Local government and more to come of scandals, the hashtag is :
#Cladding_Walls_Wallcavity_Wallinsulations_Firerateddoors_ Safety_Firealams_Construction_WakeWatch_Manufacturers_ Regulators_Inspectors_Leaseholders_Balconies_Standards_Building Materials_Government_Localgovernment_and more to come scandals,
probably the name kept short #CladdingScandal because just the full name may exceed the Twitter allowance of 280 creators per tweet soon.
How many people are affected, no one sure, and depends on what you read, hear or watch and if it is a financial or mental effect? direct or indirect, like the children living in an atmosphere of fear of eviction, building set on fire while they sleep, parents tension, stress, etc. what post-trauma will or may bring, no one knows but it will be big.
It will Will the mental, anxiety, depression, not proper thinking, and dysfunctionality of Millions of people because of these issues and that will cost the taxpayer money much more to treat them than the remedy of the faulty buildings now? definitely
How many flats affected, sorry again not sure and no one can give the exact answer for that.
Also, the blocks of flats classified by how tall they are. If your building is less than 18 m, you are on your own no grant no help you have to pay full remedy yourself for buying a flat in a short building although it is dangerous and you have to remedy it.
Probably there is a logic here from the one who decided on this is. Thinking people bought flats in building less than 18 m high wasting land and shouldn’t be helped.
Any official representation for all these flat owners, leaseholders? there are 1000s & 1000s of them, something like a union, a body speaks for them or on their behalves. No.
There are a few groups and a lot of Twitter accounts, tweeters of leaseholders all highlighting the problems in their buildings, the shocking bills everyone had and having all bad news, and now and then a very little hope or promise of some sort. Also, there are politicians, MPs, some standing with the leaseholders from the start and some stood with the leaseholders when their parties allow them.
do you think some politicians took advantage of the cladding issues, don’t be double-dummy to ask this?
Is there a complete solution for the #Cladding_Walls_Wallcavity_Wallinsulations_Firerateddoors_ Safety_Firealams_Construction_WakeWatch_Manufacturers_ Regulators_Inspectors_Leaseholders_Balconies_Standards_Building Materials_Government_Localgovernment_and more to come scandals, soon? no, at least not complete one or in foreseeable future?
Will this problem ever go? No never, there is an EWS1 form renewable every 5 years
Who has to pay for the remedy and solve the problems? Now , The poor leaseholders all or part , because they bought flats to live in and happened to have defected when bought and these buildings may be built not to the standards and not regulated and inspected &&&&&. but now some people considering or painting the original defects from the starts as repairs that need to be carried out on the buildings. Repairs usually carried out on leaseholders' accounts.
who caused the problem? the government and local government, construction companies, builders regulators, inspectors, developer, landlords ...... everyone but not the leaseholders
Who brought governments that not standing with leaseholders and do proper regulation inspections etc? voters including some leaseholders by voting for them
What is the proper solution for this mess? The only solution is full compensation for leaseholders and people affected by the #Cladding ................ is cross-party MPs resolution away from politics. Looking more at leaseholders crises than looking at the cost or any other issues and things.
As we have seen, if that is right, all main parties had hand in it and all parties have to have a solution.
Would you understand the problems and the solutions after reading this? no, because the one who wrote it doesn’t? That is even before receiving the expected remedy bills. We understand most leaseholders' minds after receiving the bills will be more dysfunctional. Wait and see what will come.
What is Wake Watch?
Fire Wardens patrol the inside and outside the buildings to detect fire and alert residences to leave the building when that happens.
How does this work?
Do they knock on doors or raise alarm, what sort of alarm?
How many wardens per floor/building/outside/ inside procedure does anyone know? please
When people have wardens patrolling the buildings, does that make them feel safe? or You will think your building is not safe and you will be worried about yourself, your partner, and your children.
What if the wardens fall asleep. They are only human like the residence, not robots and they may fall asleep
Will the warden be the last to leave and evacuate all residence first.
Will the warden know many people live in each flat.
Is there a register for guests or if people out of buildings?
Anyone have the procedure or know, please let us have it, for what happens when something happens, please someone tell the procedure for say 5 story or more buildings.
Government and Some Conservatives MPs position and actions:
Now we know where the government stands, not with the leaseholders and they resist the standing with the leaseholders.
Also, we know some of the government party MPs standing with the leaseholders against the government.
On the other side, we like to hear from the opposition, what is their position and action (s).
Opposition position is measured by what they do and not by what they say.
We know they not in government to do anything now but now they can do something, have the commitment to what they say that there are more than 11 million people affected by these issues.
Commitment to compensate them when in power or when share power with another party. To compensate them for all losses.
If you believe there are more than 11 Million people affected the opposition parties need the 11 Million to get to power as much as the 11 Million need the commitment, if not more.
The commitment would raise leaseholders' morale and properly help with the lenders, mortgage, etc it gives a guarantee, future security, and sort of protection against sharks.
Having just leaders or MPs support is not good enough, leaders come and go but the party is the one that stays. Leaders may be popular and star for a few months while there the honeymoon period lasts.
We saw some leaders their popularity jumped from 100s followers to 1000s if not 10000s in a few months then when they are gone they gone.
Need action from people when they can action, please.
Update on Feb 15 ,2021
There was the announcement last week by the housing minister, Jenrick and the grant funds to help affected leaseholder was increased by 3.6 Billion from 1.6 Billion making the total 5.1 Billion. This is far from enough. Probably the government does not know how many people and buildings are affected or they do not want to announce it as the grant does not match the required sum to correct defective buildings.
Then we have the opposition they put a higher figure to the number of people affected by the housing crises of more than 11 Million there figure increased from 3 Million first then 5 Million. But there is no change to their estimated cost of 16 Billion to remedy the faulty and dangerous flats. Which another confusion.
VIMTO estimated the cost to be near 51 Billion
That comes from the government willing to pay 10% of the total cost
First 1.6 Billion of 16 Billion
Now 5.1 Billion of 51 Billion
Also it around 3 times the opposition affected people figures with the initial cost of 16 B x 3 = 48 B
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Leaseholders Cladding Problems for some
See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil
Are there Winners and Losers In Cladding and Safety Issue Episodes
There are lots of people affected by the cladding and safety issues, some have negative and some have a positive effect and on some, the effect is more than the others as the effect goes from a very little and may be unnoticeable to a life-changing effect as VIMTO has seen it but you might not. Vimto is not a specialist and from hearing to from people reading about it see the effect is divided into groups and if you consider any part of it wrong please correct us. VIMTO has sorted these effects as follows according to the affected groups:
1 - Leaseholders
Leaseholders are the main losers and whether they fully compensated financially for the value of rectifying the buildings or not the damage to their lives as we see it and know it will stay with them and maybe for life, to mention
The mental stress that affects their well being,
Family relationships strain,
Effect on normal daily life and work performance etc
In addition to financial aspects related to rectifying the building, they live in or due to work performance affected by the change to their normal life and mental stress.
Probably they will need help to recover from the Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD)
2 - Freehold Companies
Freehold companies are out of the problem as we understand and according to what we have read and heard
They do not have to pay for rectifying the building's faults and all the cost will be passed to the leaseholders to pay it probably there are some exceptional cases.
No liability to freehold companies for the effected buildings and the buildings might have changed hands a few times and passed from one company to another, to another as owners since they were built or converted to residential buildings with the faults or substandard construction and materials.
3 - Contractors
From our experience in Manchester, there are very a few contractors in the market specialise in surveying and rectifying the faults which is not leaseholders mistake or fault but leaseholders need to rectify their buildings quickly that is if they have the money to keep their flats and rest in peace in the buildings without the worry about the fire or if they need to sell their flats as they can not in the present status and after the changes in building regulations and the standards, well after they bought the flats . Again from our experience in Manchester the prices have inflated for the materials, the survey and testing of the buildings and performing the rectifying work etc. The building management companies responsible for the buildings have to book the services and the materials for a certain time otherwise the leaseholders might have to pay more at a later time. The business for these services is booming.
There are other groups who are affected but with much less effect or influence from the first three and they are :
4 - Government and Local Governments
The Government and Local Governments seems out of the whole issue and without any liability for what has happened.
The issue of the cladding and safety came after Grenfell Tower incident and as a reaction to it and not an action to protect people by regular updating of the fire safety standards which, if this had been done and happened before Grenfell Tower incident we wouldn’t talk about it now.
The government offered grants to the leaseholders and that suppose to be considered honourable and big accomplishments from the governments and for the leaseholders to forget the rest of the rights. This also may enhance the government's popularity and give them credit without further liability. However, for leaseholders who paid for rectifying their buildings before the offer came will receive nothing.
The building regulations for the cladding and safety issues seem have not been updated regularly in the UK and that cover wide areas, where the high rise building started to dominate the sky like Manchester City where it may have the highest affected area as we have heard.
The government and local governments should have a safety body to observe and inspect the adherence to the building regulations of the cladding and safety issues and upgrade the regulations and standards if and when necessary and not wait for people to be killed to do it.
We consider both the government and local governments are very lucky that they have not been sued.
According to a friend of VIMTO: The new building regulations and standards should be applied to the construction and renovation of buildings starting after the regulations dates.
However, when the issue is a safety issue as we have here who is responsible for it The one asks for it or the one who owns it.
Were these building built with adherence to the buildings regulation standards at the time they built?
5 - Media and Newspapers
The Media and newspapers coverage for the cladding and safety issues is great in highlighting it to let everyone knows about the problem and the suffering of the leaseholders which might influence the government to help them.
However, these issues filled a considerable time for the media and columns for the newspapers since the starts and the problem came to the surface and that help increases their circulation and viewings.
6 - Politicians
Some politicians trying to help the leaseholders and we don’t know if the government listening to them or not, however, leaseholders appreciating their standing with them and this will help them in the next election if the people consider they did a good job in this important issue.
7 - Human Right Organisations
We do not know if the leaseholder's situation and suffering and the sudden demands to pay more than they can pay is considered a human rights violations but we know some leaseholders are living in hell and their lives turned upside down, can not sleep, concentrate or live a normal life. Is this not an abusive and touchers atmosphere to live in or not. Especially for the ones who are going to lose their accommodations because they can not afford to pay for the expensive repairs. Some call it a human right violation and then we saw an article in The Guardian
Britain flouting human rights over Grenfell-style cladding ( https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2018/aug/19/britain-flouting-human-rights-over-grenfell )
and this
Watchdog confirms Grenfell breached human rights laws ( https://www.equalityhumanrights.com/en/our-work/news/watchdog-confirms-grenfell-breached-human-rights-laws )
and a lot of mention of human right in the discussion of the issue of cladding and building safety regulations however never heard from human right organizations or some specialized person to clarify if this issue is violating human right or not. Or is it just VIMTO doesn't know about HROs involvement. As this issue has brought the human right organizations to the surface, HROs may have benefited indirectly by an increase in donations because of the issue without maybe doing anything.
It is not our business to interfere with their business but it is good to ask them kindly for support for Manchester locals.
When we googled " human right organisations and Manchester cladding issues " we found Manchester | Amnesty International UK
and they have a green logo instead of the usual yellow colour. we thought to tweet them to see if they consider this issue human right violation or not and do they have any thought to support Manchester leaseholders.
Finally, when you read tweets like this you know how bad is this issue.
https://twitter.com/MrRoGog/status/1287314698778693632
https://twitter.com/dlphillips13/status/1287844765539631107
8 - VIMTO
VIMTO know friends that effected by the episodes of the cladding and safety issues and feel really bad to see them disadvantaged for something, not their fault and to see them unhappy, stressed and worrying all the time, which has changed their life upside down and maybe for a long time.
VIMTO is disappointed to see these people subjected to the level of maybe torcher and abuse that is going on for a long time and some to lose their accommodations that they bought to enjoy like others but their life’s disrupted without having the ability to stand for their rights.
As far as we know human rights organisations not even standing by them or maybe there is no human right violations but still, they are facing very bad and unpleasant experience that no like to hear about never mind living it and they need even little support.
We feel sorry to our friends in Manchester and to our friends from outside the UK who are leaseholders. VIMTO, when asked about the cladding issue by friends from abroad who bought flats in Manchester and they can not come because of COVID, we tell them that they are at least safe in their houses and in a better position than the locals. For the locals, the flats are their homes and their saving for them it is just investment and holiday.
Other businesses have effected by these issues but we not sure how many but sure lawyers and solicitors will have some extra work, do you know any others.
Are the major parties at risk of disintegrating and segmented into smaller parties?
Political factions, communities and religious to name.
Someone has this opinion and analysis on the political parties :
The political parties are in disarray, and the members cannot agree on anything, just dithering, and they are struggling to speak in one voice. They are not as they should be or suppose to be united in one party for the same principles.
The parties are at risk of breaking down more and more into small parties at the end if this continues. The parties could be fragmented into small parties when these groups feel the major parties are not in control to lead or represent them.
At present, some religious and communities groups support this or that party more than others. The groups' support maybe not being recognised and the groups have nothing in return but to keep everything in order and stable, which is suitable and good for all.
The parties have their policies or party lines, which depend on the party leaders at the time. The leader drives the party in the way he/she wants and not necessary to everyone liking or what the majority of the party members wish.
If the major parties haven't united members and they are not in excellent shapes, this might encourage some small groups to form their parties. The groups then can have more say and better representations in the parliament to serve themselves.
Would the UK have a better chance to a Good Brexit Deal Under A Dictatorial Rule: that is a question someone asked and justified it
Would the UK have a better Brexit dealt from the European Union if the Brexit deal negotiated under a dictatorial rule instead of a democracy of the two-party system as the UK ruled now?
We all seen how the Iranian has negotiated their deal with the European Union, including Britain and the United States. The Iranian got everything they wanted and maybe more than what they would have expected to gain. While The British getting the minimum from The European Union and less than the expectation for many.
The two parties are fighting each other in public instead of forgetting their differences and negotiate a Brexit deal that agreed on by themselves first.
They should have gone to the European Union as one team and with one voice to have proper negotiations. The situation reminds us now what we used to hear in the past. The British ruled the world through their divide rule !!!!!!!
Has the Britsh now fallen to this trap and the European Union encouraging the division between the two parties to make them occupied in fighting each other instead of getting the best deal for their country and the European to get the most they can get from the divorce deal?
The British are not agreeing even on the subject of their arguments like what we saw when one side has muttered " Stupid Women" according to one party lip-reading and "Stupid People" according to the other party lip-reading. Not agreeing on a lip-reading and as “stupid people”, which include women and men, is more polite, and that means everyone is stupid is more respectful and less insulting.
That is why the question was asked: is negotiating Brexit under democracy rule as it is now in the UK is better or it would be better under a dictatorship rule as we have seen the Iranian negotiation result and gains from the most powerful countries in the world. The Iranian got all that they asked for, and they are under a dictatorship or at least under controlled or measured democracy.
Can you please provide your opinion and tell us which is better in your opinion to negotiate under dictatorship rule or democracy?
In our opinion, we think it is sham to see that dictator governments look like working better than democratic governments because of some politicians sometimes put their parties before their countries, what is your opinion?
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