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Legal powers introduced since the Grenfell Tower fire to force building owners to fix serious fire safety issues are being ignored, Sky News can reveal.

One of the UK’s first Building Remediation Orders, issued by a judge last year, gave the owners of a block of flats in Bristol six months to fix serious fire safety defects including removing dangerous Grenfell-style insulation. The court’s deadline has now passed and nothing has been done, leaving residents fearful in their homes.

As a major report is published tomorrow to name and shame those responsible for the devastating fire at Grenfell Tower that killed 72 people on 14 June 2017, there are still hundreds of thousands of people living in buildings they know to be unsafe.

Seven years on from the disaster, legislation enacted to end Britain’s building safety crisis has failed to be enforced.

At least 3,280 buildings are known to still have unsafe cladding, with only 949 of those having started works, according to the latest government data.

‘Scary to think about’

Steph Culpin
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Steph Culpin

“It’s something you think about every day,” says Steph Culpin, 37, who owns a flat on the second floor of the colourful block needing repair in Bristol.

“There are people in the building that might struggle to get out if there’s a fire…the best we’ve got is that a fire hasn’t happened. And that’s scary to think about.”

Ms Culpin bought her two-bedroom flat in Orchard House, a former office building that was extended and converted into 54 flats in 2018, a year after the Grenfell Tower fire.

Read more:
The Grenfell children who survived the blaze
Tower block that went up in flames was having cladding replaced

Orchard House
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Orchard House

It wasn’t until 2019 that she and other residents were informed through new fire surveys required post-Grenfell that there was a litany of alarming safety risks.

Flammable material around Ms Culpin’s windows and installed between the two buildings of her block was labelled “high risk”.

And the shock discovery of combustible insulation manufactured by Celotex, one of the firms who gave evidence at the Grenfell Tower Inquiry, meant Orchard House was given the lowest fire safety rating available on a five-point scale.

The Building Safety Act, which was drawn up in the wake of the Grenfell fire and took effect in 2023, placed responsibility on building owners to replace defective materials.

But the owner of Orchard House, Stockwood Land 2 Limited, currently run by Amarjit Singh Litt and previously by members of the Litt family, has refused to engage with any of the problems found.

In November 2023, Ms Culpin and a fellow resident became one of only a handful to take their freeholder to court to try to force action.

Orchard House’s owner didn’t attend the court hearing despite the judge ruling they “knew or ought to have known about these proceedings”.

The tribunal ruled in favour of the residents and ordered the owner to carry out the work by June 2024.

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‘I realised the burning building was my own home’

However, the deadline came and went, the work has not been done and no one from Stockwood Land 2 Limited has responded to the many attempts to contact them.

“When you talk to somebody that isn’t in this situation, it’s actually really difficult to get across the severity of it and how it makes you feel,” Ms Culpin says. “From a mental health point of view, from a financial point of view.

“Because they just go, ‘surely somebody is going to make sure they do that. Are you sure you’ve spoken to the right people?’ and those are [the] sort of questions that you get and you go, ‘yeah, I’ve knocked on every door we have. And they’re all just shut’.”

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Ms Culpin can’t sell the flat because until the work has been done no mortgage lender will approve an application from a buyer.

She is now paying interest on a Help To Buy Loan she cannot pay off.

All government schemes to help fund remedial works have to be agreed upon by the building owners and cannot be instigated by residents.

‘You live with it all the time’

Across the country, there are thousands of examples of buildings where work should have been done but hasn’t because the owners have delayed it or disappeared.

Paul Baston
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Paul Baston

In Birmingham, Paul Baston, 66, lives on the top floor of Liberty Place, a high-rise canal-side development.

Standing on his balcony, the problem is clear. Banned aluminium composite (ACM) cladding covers the outside walls from floor to ceiling.

ACM is the same cladding that was on Grenfell Tower and was immediately forbidden from being used on buildings after the tragedy.

“It is very, very stressful. It’s very worrying. You live with it all the time,” says Mr Baston, who keeps his passport, driving licence, keys and wallet on his bedside table in case he has to evacuate the building in a hurry.

He worries about others in the building with young families or elderly relatives.

“You’ve got to be mindful and be prepared. And this is as prepared as I can be,” he says.

Mr Baston’s building is owned by Lendlease, who told Sky News it plans to carry out replacement work later this year.

Jim Illingworth
Image:
Jim Illingworth

‘Half-safe’

In another part of Birmingham, Jim Illingworth, 65, has new cladding which was replaced by his building’s owners under the government’s Building Safety Scheme.

But not all fire risks have been removed.

Internal surveys routinely carried out by mortgage lenders and insurance companies have revealed a design flaw that means fire could still spread rapidly between flats.

Mr Illingworth, who lives in the one-bedroom flat with his wife, says it leaves the building “half-safe”.

Now categorised as just one rating above Ms Culpin in Bristol, his risk is deemed low enough that remedial works are not required.

“According to the government, it’s nice and safe – according to the insurers and the mortgage people, it’s not safe.

“So we’ve got the government saying one thing and the practicality on the ground saying something totally different.”

It means Mr Illingworth is paying three times as much in building insurance compared to when he moved in.

He says there are estate agents who “won’t touch the buildings” due to banks still being reluctant to offer mortgages on the flats.

Recommendations in the final report from the Grenfell Tower Inquiry will focus on the technical aspects of the fire at the west London building “to prevent a similar tragedy from happening again”.

But people across the UK are raising the same warnings and living with the same combustible materials which made up Grenfell Tower, as well as uncovering new fire risks every day.

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Digital wallet provider Hyperlayer closes in on £30m funding boost

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Digital wallet provider Hyperlayer closes in on £30m funding boost

A British fintech which counts Standard Life among its key clients is close to finalising one of the industry’s biggest funding rounds so far this year.

Sky News understands that Hyperlayer, which is run by the former Morgan Stanley executive Rob Rooney, is lining up a major equity injection led by CDAM, a UK-based investment firm, and several new institutional investors.

City sources said this weekend that the new capital from CDAM and other backers could total at least £30m.

The funding round is expected to take place at a post-money valuation of about £160m.

Hyperlayer, which operates a consumer-facing digital wallet called Hyperjar, intends to use the new funding as growth capital to finance the development of new partnerships with global banks and asset managers.

The company provides smart account technology on existing client infrastructure, and is said to work with a number of the world’s 10 largest banks – although it has not publicly disclosed their identities.

Its work with Standard Life involves the future launch of a consumer money app aimed at people approaching or in early retirement.

Hyperlayer’s consumer-facing platform sees customers organise their money in what the company calls “digital jam jars”, enabling them to earn rewards which give them access to partner brands such as Asda, Morrisons and Starbucks.

IKEA and the John Lewis Partnership are among the other merchant partners with which Hyperlayer is working to develop distinctive loyalty-based initiatives for its financial institution clients.

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Founded in 2006 by Adam Chamberlain and Scott Davies, CDAM has $1.5bn in assets under management and is an experienced investor in financial services technology.

Mr Davies has had a seat on Hyperlayer’s board for several years.

Mr Rooney, who was a prominent Wall Street executive for years, ultimately serving as Morgan Stanley’s technology operations, joined the company as CEO in 2023.

The new capital injection led by CDAM is understood to be subject to approval by Hyperlayer’s shareholders.

Hyperlayer declined to comment on Sunday.

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Octopus Energy sparks £10bn demerger of tech arm Kraken

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Octopus Energy sparks £10bn demerger of tech arm Kraken

Octopus Energy Group, Britain’s largest residential gas and electricity supplier, is plotting a £10bn demerger of its technology arm that would reinforce its status as one of the country’s most valuable private companies.

Sky News can exclusively reveal that Octopus Energy is close to hiring investment bankers to help formally separate Kraken Technologies from the rest of the group.

The demerger, which would be expected to take place in the next 12 months, would see Octopus Energy’s existing investors given shares in the newly independent Kraken business.

A minority stake in Kraken of up to 20% is expected to be sold to external shareholders in order to help validate the technology platform’s valuation, according to insiders.

One banking source said that Kraken could be valued at as much as $14bn (£10.25bn) in a forthcoming demerger.

Citi, Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan and Morgan Stanley are among the investment banks invited to pitch for the demerger mandate in recent weeks.

A deal will augment Octopus Energy chief executive Greg Jackson’s paper fortune, and underline his success at building a globally significant British-based company over the last decade.

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Octopus Energy now has 7.5m retail customers in Britain, following its 2022 rescue of the collapsed energy supplier Bulb, and the subsequent acquisition of Shell’s home energy business.

In January, it announced that it had become the country’s biggest supplier – surpassing Centrica-owned British Gas – with a 24% market share.

It also has a further 2.5m customers outside the UK.

Octopus energy wind turbine. Pic suppled by Octopus.
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Kraken is an operating system licensed to other energy providers, water companies and telecoms suppliers. Pic: Octopus

Sources said a £10bn valuation of Kraken would now imply that the whole group, including the retail supply business, was worth in the region of £15bn or more.

That would be double its valuation of just over a year ago, when the company announced that it had secured new backing from funds Galvanize Climate Solutions and Lightrock.

Shortly before that, former US vice president Al Gore’s firm, Generation Investment Management, and the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board increased their stakes in Octopus Energy in a transaction valuing the company at $9bn (£7.2bn).

Kraken is an operating system which is licensed to other energy providers, water companies and telecoms suppliers.

It connects all parts of the energy system, including customer billing and the flexible management of renewable generation and energy devices such as heat pumps and electric vehicle batteries.

The business also unlocks smart grids which enable people to use more renewable energy when there is an abundant supply of it.

In the UK, its platform is licensed to Octopus Energy’s rivals EON and EDF Energy, as well as the water company Severn Trent and broadband provider Cuckoo.

Overseas, Kraken serves Origin Energy in Australia, Japan’s Tokyo Gas and Plentitude in countries including France and Greece.

Its biggest coup came recently, when it struck a deal with National Grid in the US to serve 6.5m customers in New York and Massachusetts.

Sources said other major licensing agreements in the US were expected to be struck in the coming months.

Kraken, which is chaired by Gavin Patterson, the former BT Group chief executive, is now contracted to more than 70m customer accounts globally – putting it easily on track to hit a target of 100m by 2027.

Earlier this year, Mr Jackson said that target now risked being seen as “embarrassingly unambitious”.

Last July, Kraken recruited Amir Orad, a former boss of NICE Actimize, a US-listed provider of enterprise software to global banks and Fortune 500 companies, as its first chief executive.

A demerger of Kraken will trigger speculation about an eventual public market listing of the business.

Its growth in the US, and the relative public market valuations of technology companies in New York and London, may put the UK at a disadvantage when Kraken eventually considers where to list.

One key advantage of demerging Kraken from the rest of Octopus Energy Group would be to remove the perception of a conflict of interest among potential customers of the technology platform.

A source said the unified corporate ownership of both businesses had acted as a deterrent to some energy suppliers.

Kraken has also diversified beyond the energy sector, and earlier this year joined a consortium which was exploring a takeover bid for stricken Thames Water.

This weekend, Octopus Energy declined to comment.

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Ryanair urges EU chief to ‘quit’ over air traffic strike disruption

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Ryanair urges EU chief to 'quit' over air traffic strike disruption

The boss of Ryanair has told Sky News the president of the European Commission should “quit” if she can’t stop disruption caused by repeated French air traffic control strikes.

Michael O’Leary, the group chief executive of Europe’s largest airline by passenger numbers, said in an interview with Business Live that Ursula von der Leyen had failed to get to grips, at an EU level, with interruption to overflights following several recent disputes in France.

The latest action began on Thursday and is due to conclude later today, forcing thousands of flights to be delayed and cancelled through French airspace closures.

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Mr O’Leary told presenter Darren McCaffrey that French domestic flights were given priority during ATC strikes and other nations, including Italy and Greece, had solved the problem through minimum service legislation.

He claimed that the vast majority of flights, cancelled over two days of action that began on Thursday, would have been able to operate under similar rules.

Mr O’Leary said of the EU’s role: “We continue to call on Ursula von der Leyen – why are you not protecting these overflights, why is the single market for air travel being disrupted by a tiny number of French air traffic controllers?

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File photo dated 02/09/22 of a Ryanair Boeing 737-8AS passenger airliner comes in to land at Stansted Airport in Essex. Ryanair has revealed around 63,000 of its passengers saw their flights cancelled during last week's air traffic control failure which caused widespread disruption across the industry and left thousands of passengers stranded overseas. In its August traffic update, the Irish carrier said more than 350 of its flights were cancelled on August 28 and 29 due to the air traffic contr
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Ryanair has cancelled more than 400 flights over two days due to the action in France. File pic: PA

“All we get is a shrug of their shoulders and ‘there’s nothing we can do’. We point out, there is.”

He added: “We are calling on Ursula von der Leyen, who preaches about competitiveness and reforming Europe, if you’re not willing to protect or fix overflights then quit and let somebody more effective do the job.”

The strike is estimated, by the Airlines for Europe lobby group to have led to at least 1,500 cancelled flights, leaving 300,000 travellers unable to make their journeys.

Ryanair chief executive Michael O'Leary speaks to journalists during a press conference at The Alex Hotel in Dublin. Picture date: Thursday October 3, 2024.
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Michael O’Leary believes the EU can take action on competition grounds. Pic: PA

Ryanair itself had axed more than 400 flights so far, Mr O’Leary said. Rival easyJet said on Thursday that it had cancelled 274 services over the two days.

The beginning of July marks the start of the European summer holiday season.

The French civil aviation agency DGAC had already told airlines to cancel 40% of flights covering the three main Paris airports on Friday ahead of the walkout – a dispute over staffing levels and equipment quality.

Mr O’Leary described those safety issues as “nonsense” and said twhile the controllers had a right to strike, they did not have the right to close the sky.

DGAC has warned of delays and further severe disruption heading into the weekend.

Many planes and crews will be out of position.

Mr O’Leary is not alone in expressing his frustration.

The French transport minister Philippe Tabarot has denounced the action and the reasons for it.

“The idea is to disturb as many people as possible,” he said in an interview with CNews.

Passengers are being advised that if your flight is cancelled, the airline must either give you a refund or book you on an alternative flight.

If you have booked a return flight and the outbound leg is cancelled, you can claim the full cost of the return ticket back from your airline.

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