Public meeting for flat owners facing bills up to £60,000 each for safety work
VICTIMS of Cardiff’s cladding scandal will gather on the Senedd steps tomorrow to discuss their ongoing crisis of living in unsellable, fire defective homes.
The public meeting, hosted by the Welsh Liberal Democrats, will begin at 11am Saturday January 29 with speeches from Jane Dodds MS and Councillor Rhys Taylor, followed by talks from leaseholders of unsafe homes.
“There has definitely been a seismic shift in attitude of the UK government towards housing developers responsible for flammable cladding, but we’re not yet seeing that in Wales,” said Mark Thomas, 63, who is a Celestia Development leaseholder in Cardiff Bay and a member of the Welsh Cladiators campaign group.
He added: “One of the main reasons that we’ll be there on Saturday is that we still don’t have a building safety fund in Wales and we still don’t have a date for when that will be set up.
“We therefore continue to be very concerned about the slow rate of progress from the Welsh Government.”
After the 2017 Grenfell Fire, many apartment developments in Cardiff were found to have flammable cladding.
Although the Welsh Government are funding recladding on social housing, many private leaseholders are still facing both the costs of recladding and interim safety costs themselves.
“Even after remediation starts, it could be years until it finishes – and we don’t even know when it will start,” said Rebecca Ashwin, 41, a leaseholder in Victoria Wharf, Cardiff Bay, who will be attending the meeting on Saturday.
“We’re still waiting for answers and, in the meantime, we can’t stop paying for our waking watch and our rising insurance costs until remediation is completed.”
Ms Ashwin has said that the estimated remediation costs for the Victoria Wharf site are around £60,000 for each flat, in addition to increased insurance prices, bills for safety fittings and fire wardens to patrol the site.
In response to the many residents who are in the same situation across Cardiff, the Gabalfa councillor and Cardiff Liberal Democrat council leader, Rhys Taylor, has organised a public meeting at the Senedd.
He said: “We know that a lot of people, particularly in Cardiff, feel as though government and council aren’t listening to them.
“We want to give people an opportunity to put their concerns and their demands to us so we can shape the party’s work in the Senedd in response to this issue.
“Jane Dodds will speak, and then we might break out into a citizens assembly type set up so that everyone can have a chance to speak, have their say and have their voice heard.”
The event is open to anyone who wants to show their support, it starts at 11am Saturday January 29 outside the Senedd.
