Almost 2,000 social housing blocks in England have ‘life-critical’ problems with their external cladding, according to official data.
Government figures show that 1,911 social housing blocks above 11 metres in height had been assessed as having ‘life-critical fire safety defects’ linked to their external cladding, according to the Guardian.
Nearly 1,500 social housing providers submitted fire safety assessments of 16,776 buildings above 11 metres to the regulator of social housing. This means that more than one in 10 of all blocks assessed so far were found to have defects.
Giles Grover, from the End our Cladding Scandal campaign, told the newspaper the figures were ‘shocking’ and spelled out just how widespread the building safety crisis is.
A Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities spokesperson said: ‘We are making sure that buildings with unsafe cladding in England are made safe through investing billions of pounds in safety schemes, as well as self-remediation by developers and registered providers of social housing.’
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