Salford & Eccles MP Rebecca Long-Bailey has spoken out about the ongoing cladding crisis in Salford.
Salford has had a long and complex battle with dangerous cladding ever since the issue was brought to global attention after the tragic Grenfell Tower disaster in June 2017.
Salford had dangerous cladding found on multiple blocks, including the so-called ‘Salford Nine’:
– Malus Court
– Hornbeam Court
– Thorn Court
– Beech Court
– Plane Court
– Whitebeam Court
– Salix Court
– Spruce Court
– Holm Court
Numerous other properties have also been affected, such as Transport House on Chapel Street.
The waters were muddied further when government funding to remove the cladding was made unavailable, due to the PFI deals that led to their construction.
Salford & Eccles MP, Rebecca Long-Bailey, has spoken to Salford Now about the ongoing crisis and how things need to change:
“I know people who live in buildings that have got the cladding on it but even if I didn’t, it’s one of those issues that when Grenfell happened, you could see that in Salford there were so many buildings that were similar, that Grenfell could have easily have happened in Salford and if we didn’t do something urgently and to make people safe, then it was at risk of happening again.
“And you’ve got to understand that there were thousands of people living in social housing and private sector blocks who still can’t sleep at night because they’re frightened to death of waking up in the middle of the night and finding there’s a fire in their block and that’s no way to live and the government’s approach to the whole thing.
“I mean it’s been years now since the Grenfell tragedy and it’s been an absolute shambles, we needed a big national strategy if you like, to tackle this urgently, and that’s not what we’ve seen.”
“Grenfell could have easily have happened in Salford”
“The Government should have made funding available, particularly for all social housing blocks, to have their cladding removed immediately and they didn’t do that, and then when they did they excluded the blocks in Pendleton because they were part of a PFI deal.
“So then there was a period where everybody was scrabbling around, trying to find funding from somewhere else, and eventually, they did. But they shouldn’t have had to do that”
“A lot of people have been raising concerns with me”
“I understand certainly from what I heard that the housing association have provided a flat payment to residents per week to top up their energy bills, but there are still cases that are recorded where that amount is dramatically under what they are actually paying on their bills, and in those cases that needs to be addressed.
“We get a lot of residents getting in touch with us directly and we did a series of, it was a while ago now, going into every block and bringing the councillers with me to do drop-in sessions because they were, there were issues before the cladding crisis.
“So it needs to happen very quickly. And in time for winter.”
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