Cladding and community

How to Make a City into a Firetrap: Relations of Land and Property in the UK's Cladding Scandal

“…In a socioeconomic system in which social reproduction is significantly dependent on housing wealth (Adkins et al 2021) and leaseholders are often significantly leveraged to attain it, residents were effectively trapped in fire-prone buildings by a dysfunctional housing system. Survey research evidenced significant mental health impacts on leaseholders as a result both of fear of fire and of financial ruin, with a 2020 survey by the UK Cladding Action Group finding that 90% of leaseholders reported deteriorating mental health and 23% suicidal feelings or a desire to self-harm (UKCAG 2020; see also Brill 2022;Martin and Preece 2021;Preece 2021).…”

“…However, leaving leaseholders to pay was legally valid but politically unpopular, so leaseholder campaign groups were able to mobilise significant cross‐party support. Moreover, it is dubious that a system of individual loans is an expedient solution in the face of a problem that requires significant coordination amongst leaseholders and freeholders (see Brill 2022) and posed a major risk for the property market as a whole. This latter issue appeared to come to a head when, in 2021, flat sales plummeted by one third (Lees 2021) and the Bank of England indicated concern that mortgage lenders’ exposure to cladding issues could be serious enough to trigger a financial crisis (Hammond 2021).…”