'End the scandal!' People in homes with Grenfell-style cladding demand government ends 'spiralling crisis'

  • London

Tap above to watch video report by Rags Martel

People living in homes with flammable Grenfell-style cladding have written to the government demanding and end to the scandal.

As well as being unsafe many properties have become unsellable in what is being described as a 'spiralling crisis'.

There has been protest and pressure that another disaster on the scale of Grenfell is still possible.

"We still have hundreds of thousands of people living in extremely dangerous buildings, they are facing a life-threatening situation and facing insurmountable bills to fix a problem that was not of their making," said Ritu Saha of the UK Cladding Action Group.

Ritu lives on the top floor of a building wrapped in the same deadly material as Grenfell. She is among many people who have signed a letter to the government with an urgent plea to make homes safe.

"Fire does not discriminate and if something happens in one of these buildings the consequences could be catastrophic," Ritu added.

ITV News has been covering what's become known as the cladding scandal since 2017. But three years on the problem is getting worse.

  • 700,000 people are living in buildings with flammable cladding

  • Some households face bills of £115,000 for repair work

  • An estimated 3.6million people are unlikely to be able to sell their homes due to fire safety issues

"Like so many people I watched it on television at the time and to watch an inferno in which you knew people were being burnt alive was shocking and everybody sat there and said never again," said Michael Mansfield, lawyer for Grenfell bereaved and survivors.

"Here we are over three years down the line and there are hundreds of buildings with thousands of people at risk - and with Covid on top. They're basically in prison and living in a home which might go up in flames!" he added.

The government said it was making homes safe and provided £1.6billion to remove flammable cladding.

"We have received only £50,000 to resolve a problem which is going to cost £2million to resolve," said Ritu Saha.

"It has been a hard slog for over three years and the majority of the dangerous cladding remains on our building."

Read and watch coverage of the Grenfell Inquiry here