A brilliant Private Eye story today – courtesy of some excellent spade work by affected leaseholders – shows that only seven of the 56 parliamentary constituencies with cladding sites are Tory held.
Meanwhile, developers and freehold owning entities have been pouring money into party coffers.
The article referenced the 2,784 buildings that have applied to the Building Safety Fund, which is two thirds over subscribed.
All leaseholders need to be alert to clauses 88 and 89 of the Building Safety Bill, which is heading back to the Commons for a rethink. Together they make liable to pay for historic defects.
This means that there is no moral hazard in building badly – something that our hugely subsidised housebuilders need little encouragement in doing, judging by the dismal reports coming in from the EWS1 surveys. 90% of them are failing.
The Eye is not wrong to draw attention in the same article to Tory donors.
Up pops James Tuttiett, of the residential freehold fund E&J Capital Partners, whose Acorn Estates donated £8,000.
Freeholder and developer Delancey (DV4), busy in the Olympic Village in Stratford east London, donated £100,000.
European Land and Property (ELP) which developed Paddington Walk with the Reuben brothers using Grenfell-style ACM, donated £200,000. Jamie Reuben, son of David Reuben, personally donated £628,000, as well as another £294,000 via Investors in Private Capital.
Even Sarah Pidgley, wife of the now deceased housebuilding legend Tony Pidgley, donated £35,000 in January this year.
But biggest of all came from Redrow founder Steve Morgan, who gave £1 million last December and another £62,500 in May via Bridgemere, which holds many of the Redrow residential freeholds.
Related posts:
Paddington Walk leaseholders have paid £3.5m to remove Grenfell cladding, with more to come …
Last year: £64.8bn leasehold properties sold. £13.7bn was new-build. Leasehold house numbers double. Developers make £300-500 million a year from ground rent sales
APPG hears agony of Grenfell cladding on private sites, while Lendlease sites head to tribunal to get leaseholders to pay
Government can’t lend cash to Grenfell cladding sites until someone agrees to pay it back, says LKP
LKP calls for levy on developers and freeholders over cladding
Martin Boyd resigns from LKP
This is an outrage that someone who has given their time freely to help other leaseholders for such a long time, with little or no support from Government, has stood his ground , has brought all the injustices of cladding and leasehold to forefront now feels he has to resign. It is one of those times when you know things will never be the same again. If Martin is not involved working with Seb and LKP highlighting all the injustices with leasehold which are being ignored and swept under the carpet, by government, out of sight, out of mind, but LKP kept them in the forefront of leasehold. This is someone who should not be allowed to walk away. All too often we have yes people, more interested in their image and what they can get out of it, this was a selfless person genuinely trying to help leaseholders. I agree with others put him in charge of LEASE now.
I completely agree with Cherry Jones, as above; I think that Martin Boyd should be put in charge of LEASE. to sort out this scandal with the Government so as to help and protect the leaseholders who are the victims here.
Thank you,
Kind regards,
Jacqueline,
The problem is that many Aristocracy and landed gentry and members of parliament are landlords/freeholders. They are also the people with the power. They are unlikely to change the feudal freeholder/leaseholder relationship to remove injustice and lack of fairness towards the leaseholder/tenant. Even some Labour MP’s are landlords. A lot of aristocracy got their land ownership through violence going back as far as 1066. I don’t see any beneficial changes to the system any time soon.