Our fire safety programme began in 2019 and has been focused on replacing cladding where required to ensure that our buildings comply with new government safety regulations.
The programme started with 770 inspections of our buildings, to understand which of our buildings required works.
Working with a range of consultants and fire safety engineers, we were able to confirm that most of our buildings that we inspected did not need any safety works.
However, we identified 65 buildings which needed fire safety work. These works are under way, and our programme is on track and is due to be completed in 2026.
Michael Reece, Chief Property Officer at A2Dominion, said:
“The safety of our customers is always our top priority. To date, we’ve invested £38m in our fire safety programme and utilised the government’s Building Safety Fund, with a specialist team in place to drive this forward.
“As well as fixing cladding issues, we’ve undertaken a range of other fire safety works too, such as ensuring fire doors are compliant with regulations and we’ve introduced measures to prevent the spread of fires between flats.
“Throughout this work, we’ve been making sure that we communicate with you to provide information on the works required to your buildings and the support available during this time.”
“We’ve been spending more on our existing buildings outside of our fire safety programme too, to make improvements and ensure they are as safe as they can be.
"We’ve also improved how we communicate with you by having dedicated Resident Liaison Officers who share regular updates on the progress of building work."
Our progress in numbers
- We’ve carried out in-depth inspections of 319 buildings
- We identified 65 buildings that needed fire safety work
- Fire safety works at 7 buildings are due to be completed in 2024
- We have invested £38m in the programme and received £7m in government funding so far
- We are on track to fully complete the programme by 2026.
Case study: Recladding works at 146-home scheme in Hounslow
In Hounslow, our Baroque and Renaissance Court development provides 146 homes for key workers, leaseholders, and shared ownership customers.
After inspecting the building in 2020 we discovered that the developers of the building had used a polystyrene-based cladding. This is now known to be a high-risk and combustible cladding material.
We sought to contact the original developer, which was responsible for replacing the cladding. However, we found it had gone into administration.
Therefore, we took on the works ourselves, and were one of the first housing associations to secure money from the government’s Building Safety fund. We were awarded £2.5m towards the work.
Works began in 2021 and took 18 months to complete. We communicated with customers regularly throughout this process to ensure they knew what was happening and how to access support if needed. We also held regular webinars to share updates and respond to our customers’ questions.
Receiving the government funding meant we did not pass any costs on to customers, which we have covered along with additional expenses such as fire safety surveillance.
Following the completion of the recladding work, Baroque and Renaissance Court now benefits from an A1-rated cladding system, which is a safe and non-combustible material.
You can find out more about building fire safety on our customer website