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Flat owners caught up in the cladding crisis say they will remain trapped in unsellable homes despite a major new scheme to help fund repairs.

The long-awaited Cladding Safety Scheme (CSS) opened this week and will provide £5bn to fix medium-rise tower blocks with flammable external walls in cases where the developer cannot be traced.

It has been billed by the government as the “biggest intervention on building safety to date” and aims to protect leaseholders from the expensive costs of remediating their properties that have emerged since the Grenfell Tower disaster.

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But Lisa Petty, who is facing a £21,000 bill, told Sky News the announcement will “have absolutely no bearing on my situation”.

The 42-year-old lives in a building in Romford, Essex, with the same type of ACM cladding blamed on the rapid spread of the deadly fire at Grenfell Tower in 2017, which killed 72 people.

Because the building is less than 11 metres in height, it does not qualify for government funding.

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Lisa said: “It’s so frustrating to hear the government say all leaseholders are blameless when they have left out a whole group of us living in buildings below 11 metres.

“The government is contradicting itself because they say if you’re under 11 metres that’s a lower risk to life so you don’t need remediation, but at the same time they have acknowledged there’s a risk because they have banned ACM cladding on (new) buildings irrespective of height.”

Read more:
The post-Grenfell cladding scandal has left me penniless and about to go bankrupt’
Grenfell Tower six years on: ‘Frustration over lack of change is turning to anger’

While ministers have repeatedly insisted buildings below this threshold are safe and remediation work is not necessary, government guidance contains no restriction on repairs being required.

Officials from the Department of Levelling Up, Communities and Housing (DLUCH) have intervened over Lisa’s case, but fire engineers are standing firm in their position the works are needed in order for the building to meet safety standards.

Lisa Petty is facing a £21,000 bill to remove Grenfell-style cladding from her home
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Lisa Petty is facing a £21,000 bill to remove Grenfell-style cladding from her home

The long-running saga resulted in the sale of Lisa’s flat collapsing and her mortgage payments rising by £450 a month – as she switched to a variable rate when she thought she would be moving.

Lisa said the problems have limited “every aspect of my life” and it feels like there’s “no end in sight”.

“I can’t begin to quantify the impact it’s had, it’s exhausting,” she said.

“I want children and I’ve thought about adoption in the past, but that’s not something I feel like I can pursue because my future and my financial stability is so dependent on this situation.

“It just feels like your life isn’t your own and you are just worried to spend any money.

“I shouldn’t be made to pay to make this building safe that I had absolutely no say in designing or signing off.”

‘Buildings will only be made half safe’

Since the Grenfell Tower fire killed 72 people in 2017, the cladding scandal has trapped thousands of flat owners in unsafe and unsellable homes – with many facing huge repair bills to fix them.

The opening of the CSS means that costs of fixing dangerous cladding for all buildings in England over 11 metres will now be covered either by government funding or by companies who built them.

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Housing developers have been told by Michael Gove to commit to repairing unsafe buildings or be banned from the market.

The DLUCH said the scheme will give “tens of thousands of residents across England a pathway to a safe home”.

But the End our Cladding Scandal (EOCS) campaign group said while welcome “there are still many hundreds of thousands of people trapped in the building safety scandal, including those in buildings under 11 metres in height”.

They added the scheme will only make buildings “half safe” because it does not cover historic non-cladding fire safety issues, like internal defects and missing cavity barriers.

The government has introduced a £10-£15k legal cap on what can be charged to fix these widespread problems, but this excludes certain leaseholders, including landlords of more than three flats.

‘We are being punished’

Patsy Sweeney, who owns three small rentals in Birmingham with her husband, feels like she is being “punished” for investing into property to self-fund her retirement.

The former insurance broker said she was “accidentally” pushed into the “non-qualifying” threshold because she had wanted to sell the flat she was living in and move to a house during the pandemic – but the cladding issues made that impossible.

“I was going round the bend, getting really desperate to get out of the flat and feeling trapped, so we took a view to rent it out and get a mortgage for the house and (months later) that was what put us over the threshold.”

The 56-year-old now faces “uncapped financially liability” for the non-cladding issues, which she fears will cost tens of thousands of pounds.

Patsy Sweeney and her husband don't qualify for  a cap on 'extortionate' non-cladding costs
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Patsy Sweeney and her husband don’t qualify for a cap on ‘extortionate’ non-cladding costs

“I can’t see any logic to it. You could have two flats that are worth £2m in some parts of London and be qualified, or you could have three in the north of England for £300,000 and be unqualified, so it seems really punitive.

“Whether I have one flat or 10 I didn’t make these buildings, so it’s irrelevant.”

Labour has urged the government to “rethink” the cap exclusion, arguing it will expose non-qualifying leaseholders to financially ruinous bills and delay remediation in the cases where they simply can’t pay.

Shadow housing minister Matthew Pennycook told Sky News: “The millions of people whose lives are on hold as a result of the building safety crisis need the government to grip and drive the national remediation effort that is required to make all buildings safe and to reconsider their damaging decision to abandon a minority of leaseholders to extortionate non-cladding remediation costs.”

‘Human cash machines’

The government has not set a timeline for when homes should be remediated under the CSS, but said thousands of buildings will benefit “over the next decade”.

For Patsy, this casts a dark shadow over her plans for a comfortable retirement.

Her future costs are unknown, but she calculates the cladding crisis has already cost her £1m in rising building insurance, service charges, mortgage rates, extra stamp duty and landlord licensing fees.

She fears she will never see the equity from the flats as the “non-qualifying” status stays with the property’s lease after it’s sold so even if the issues are fixed, “no one will ever want to buy them”.

Patsy said: “I’m not a wealthy individual. Some people might think I am because I’ve got these properties but all we did was use our savings to look after our future for when we retired and now that money is being spent on a problem caused by developers.

“We are being treated like human cash machines that took a commercial risk and are now being told to live with the consequences. How is that right?”

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‘Shameful’ that black boys in London more likely to die than white boys, says Met Police chief

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'Shameful' that black boys in London more likely to die than white boys, says Met Police chief

It is “shameful” that black boys growing up in London are “far more likely” to die than white boys, Metropolitan Police chief Sir Mark Rowley has told Sky News.

The commissioner told Sunday Morning with Trevor Phillips that relations with minority communities “is difficult for us”.

Sir Mark, who came out of retirement to become head of the UK’s largest police force in 2022, said: “We can’t pretend otherwise that we’ve got a history between policing and black communities where policing has got a lot wrong.

“And we get a lot more right today, but we do still make mistakes. That’s not in doubt. I’m being as relentless in that as it can be.”

He said the “vast majority” of the force are “good people”.

However, he added: “But that legacy, combined with the tragedy that some of this crime falls most heavily in black communities, that creates a real problem because the legacy creates concern.”

Sir Mark, who also leads the UK’s counter-terrorism policing, said it is “not right” that black boys growing up in London “are far more likely to be dead by the time they’re 18” than white boys.

“That’s, I think, shameful for the city,” he admitted.

The Met Police chief’s admission comes two years after an official report found the force is institutionally racist, misogynistic and homophobic.

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Police chase suspected phone thief

Baroness Casey was commissioned in 2021 to look into the Met Police after serving police officer Wayne Couzens abducted, raped and murdered Sarah Everard.

She pinned the primary blame for the Met’s culture on its past leadership and found that stop and search and the use of force against black people was excessive.

At the time, Sir Mark, who had been commissioner for six months when the report was published, said he would not use the labels of institutionally racist, institutionally misogynistic and institutionally homophobic, which Casey insisted the Met deserved.

However, London Mayor Sadiq Khan, who helped hire Sir Mark – and could fire him – made it clear the commissioner agreed with Baroness Casey’s verdict.

After the report was released, Sir Mark said “institutional” was political language so he was not going to use it, but he accepted “we have racists, misogynists…systematic failings, management failings, cultural failings”.

A few months after the report, Sir Mark launched a two-year £366m plan to overhaul the Met, including increased emphasis on neighbourhood policing to rebuild public trust and plans to recruit 500 more community support officers and an extra 565 people to work with teams investigating domestic violence, sexual offences and child sexual abuse and exploitation.

Watch the full interview on Sunday Morning with Trevor Phillips from 8.30am on Sunday.

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Unite votes to suspend Angela Rayner over Birmingham bin strike

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Unite votes to suspend Angela Rayner over Birmingham bin strike

Labour’s largest union donor, Unite, has voted to suspend Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner over her role in the Birmingham bin strike row.

Members of the trade union, one of the UK’s largest, also “overwhelmingly” voted to “re-examine its relationship” with Labour over the issue.

They said Ms Rayner, who is also housing, communities and local government secretary, Birmingham Council’s leader, John Cotton, and other Labour councillors had been suspended for “bringing the union into disrepute”.

There was confusion over Ms Rayner’s membership of Unite, with her office having said she was no longer a member and resigned months ago and therefore could not be suspended.

But Unite said she was registered as a member. Parliament’s latest register of interests had her down as a member in May.

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The union said an emergency motion was put to members at its policy conference in Brighton on Friday.

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Unite is one of the Labour Party’s largest union donors, donating £414,610 in the first quarter of 2025 – the highest amount in that period by a union, company or individual.

The union condemned Birmingham’s Labour council and the government for “attacking the bin workers”.

Mountains of rubbish have been piling up in the city since January after workers first went on strike over changes to their pay, with all-out strike action starting in March. An agreement has still not been made.

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Rat catcher tackling Birmingham’s bins problem

Ms Rayner and the councillors had their membership suspended for “effectively firing and rehiring the workers, who are striking over pay cuts of up to £8,000”, the union added.

‘Missing in action’

General secretary Sharon Graham told Sky News on Saturday morning: “Angela Rayner, who has the power to solve this dispute, has been missing in action, has not been involved, is refusing to come to the table.”

She had earlier said: “Unite is crystal clear, it will call out bad employers regardless of the colour of their rosette.

“Angela Rayner has had every opportunity to intervene and resolve this dispute but has instead backed a rogue council that has peddled lies and smeared its workers fighting huge pay cuts.

“The disgraceful actions of the government and a so-called Labour council, is essentially fire and rehire and makes a joke of the Employment Relations Act promises.

“People up and down the country are asking whose side is the Labour government on and coming up with the answer not workers.”

SN pics from 10/04/25 Tyseley Lane, Tyseley, Birmingham showing some rubbish piling up because of bin strikes
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Piles of rubbish built up around Birmingham because of the strike over pay

Sir Keir Starmer’s spokesman said the government’s “priority is and always has been the residents of Birmingham”.

He said the decision by Unite workers to go on strike had “caused disruption” to the city.

“We’ve worked to clean up streets and remain in close contact with the council […] as we support its recovery,” he added.

A total of 800 Unite delegates voted on the motion.

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Binance’s CZ threatens to sue Bloomberg over Trump stablecoin report

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Binance’s CZ threatens to sue Bloomberg over Trump stablecoin report

Binance’s CZ threatens to sue Bloomberg over Trump stablecoin report

Binance co-founder CZ has dismissed a Bloomberg report linking him to the Trump-backed USD1 stablecoin, threatening legal action over alleged defamation.

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