Building Quality Forum – Katie Thornburrow

On Friday July 23rd I held a forum to learn more about some of the most important issues around the quality of our homes.

We should all care about the quality of the buildings around us, whether they are council homes, private developments, schools, offices or civic buildings. Since the Grenfell Tower disaster in 2017 attention has rightly focused on concerns about unsafe cladding, with serious concerns about the safety of people living in affected properties, the costs of replacing potentially dangerous materials, and who should pay.

Background

In addition to cladding issues, there are many questions about other aspects of building quality across the UK such as poorly fitted insulation leading to cold bridges and mould problems, poor plumbing and electrics, inadequate installation of fire prevention measures, which need to be be addressed, and many residents of new-build estates have raised them with developers.

As an experienced architect with my own practice and over thirty years experience designing and supervising building works, I believe that we need an open, public debate about these complicated issues, so that people can be better informed about the changes we need in building regulations, public policy, and accountability for our homes and the other buildings we use.

The building quality forum will bring together a range of experts in different areas with a panel of elected representatives and space for public questions, as a contribution to this vital debate. It aims to bring these issues to wider attention and also ensure that councillors and others are properly informed as they make decisions around policies and planning issues that affect building quality, and that they can deal more effectively with issues raised by residents.

Who WAs There

The panel was made up of elected representatives from across the region

Local Authority	Position	Name
Cambridge City	MP	Daniel Zeichner
	City Councillor	Katie Thornburrow
	City Councillor	Katie Porrer
	City Councillor	Sam Davies
	City Councillor	Philipps Slatter
South Cambridgeshire DC	District Councillor	Tumi Hawkins
	District Councillor	Heather Williams
Cambridgeshire County	County Councillor	Lucy Nethsingha

They heard presentations and asked questions of representatives from a range of organisations

Organisation	Representative
Quality Issues – Housescan	Harry Yates
Cladding – LondonCAG / Manchester Cladiators	Dave Richards Giles Grover
Cladding – IpswichCAG	Alex Dickin
Leasehold & freehold abuses Leasehold Knowledge Partnership	Martin Boyd
Westminster Perspective	Daniel Zeichner MP
Building Control – 3Cs BC	Heather Jones
Fire Authority	Wayne Pringle