Desperate leaseholders stage protests over cladding dangers
Manchester leaseholders who say they're facing huge bills because of potentially dangerous building materials have staged a protest outside the city's Town Hall.
Residents of seven apartment buildings in the Green Quarter have told how they're facing financial ruin and bankruptcy, mental health issues and homelessness because their homes were built using materials that mean they are not safe from fire.
Residents of two buildings within the Green Quarter, Cypress Place and Vallea Court, say the outlook for them is even more bleak.
Having already experienced the disruption of having flammable cladding removed from their buildings, now they have discovered further works are needed to protect their homes and they face bills of up to £30,000 each.
The buildings are thought to be the first to fail fire safety tests after the removal of dangerous cladding.
They're calling on the sites' developer Lendlease - which carried out the initial removal work - to carry out a second round of renovation work.
The company said it "understood the distress felt by leaseholders", but added that other options are potentially available to them.
A spokesman for the Ministry of Housing said: “We understand many people are worried - we’re protecting those in buildings between 11m-18m from unaffordable costs, ensuring no leaseholder will pay more than £50 a month to remove unsafe cladding. This is on top of the more than £5 billion to fully fund the replacement of unsafe cladding in highest risk buildings.”
Watch the latest edition of ITV News From the North podcast on the cladding scandal: what is it like to live in a flammable, unsafe home?