Agenda and minutes
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Contact: Everton Roberts 020 7525 7221 Email: everton.roberts@southwark.gov.uk
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APOLOGIES
To receive any apologies for absence. Minutes: Apologies for lateness were received from Councillor Hamish McCallum. |
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NOTIFICATION OF ANY ITEMS OF BUSINESS WHICH THE CHAIR DEEMS URGENT
In special circumstances, an item of business may be added to an agenda within five clear working days of the meeting. Minutes: There were no additional late items.
Supplemental agenda No.1 contains the officer report on:
· Building Safety and Cladding
Supplemental agenda No.2 contains:
· Minutes – 1 December 2020 |
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DISCLOSURE OF INTERESTS AND DISPENSATIONS
Members to declare any interests and dispensations in respect of any item of business to be considered at this meeting. Minutes: There were no disclosures of interests or dispensations. |
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MINUTES
To approve as correct records the Minutes of the meetings held on 1 December 2020 and 28 January 2021. Supporting documents: Minutes: RESOLVED:
That the minutes of the meetings held on 1 December 2020 and 28 January 2021 be approved as correct records. |
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BUILDING SAFETY AND CLADDING
To receive information on Building Safety and Cladding in Southwark. Supporting documents: Minutes: Councillor Leo Pollak, Cabinet Member for Housing provided the commission with a brief overview of the current position in respect of building safety and cladding in the borough. Councillor Pollak highlighted the following:
The council has responsibility for 55,000 homes, across 260 council estates (over 2500 blocks). Health and safety of residents was of paramount importance in respect of building safety and fire safety. Since the Grenfell fire, the council has undertaken fire risk assessments (FRA) of all the council blocks, and had adapted the requirements of the FRAs to the different circumstances of the blocks.
Since the passing of the Government Safety Bill and Fire Safety Bill, the council has appointed a person to take on the responsibilities of the council’s corporate liabilities in relation to building and fire safety for the council stock. There was also a plan in place to start recruiting a set of building safety managers who have operational responsibility for a set of blocks.
In respect of EWS1 inspections, the council had made the choice to bring in a qualified engineers who have already started doing detailed inspections on a handful of blocks as part of an initial pilot. Full inspections were also being undertaken of all high rise blocks, starting with a desktop analysis which was then to be followed up with a detailed inspection where necessary. It was hoped that the inspections would be completed by the end of March and at that point the council would have a much fuller picture.
The council had set up a Building Safety Board, with a building safety programme which will form the basis for inspecting, monitoring and enforcing on private sector stock as well. The monitoring of housing association stock fell to the Department of MHCLG.
The asset management strategy refresh was to be considered by cabinet in June 2021 and there would be a much stronger risk based analysis about which estates and blocks get sequenced for the purpose of major work cycles in the borough.
The council was close to approving a budget for buybacks of former right to buy homes along with parameters of what the council would pay to bring a home back into use for homeless families or general needs council housing.
The commission also heard from Dave Hodgson, Director of Asset Management.
Dave explained that once a FRA had been undertaken, that would drive next actions. The council had a very clear understanding of the council’s high rise blocks, there were none with ACM cladding, but there were blocks with other types of cladding. Whilst the general focus was on ACM cladding, the council was focussing on all types of cladding. The council was aware of what was on the different blocks and no immediate problems had been identified.
Correspondence from the Ledbury Action Group in respect of fire risk assessment ratings of Southwark housing blocks was raised at the meeting. The correspondence made a comparison between FRAs undertaken 18 months ago compared to current date. The correspondence ... view the full minutes text for item 5. |
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WORK PROGRAMME 2020-2021
To note the housing and community engagement scrutiny commission work programme as at 10 February 2021. Supporting documents: Minutes: The chair reported that he would be bringing forward some recommendations to the next meeting on the areas the commission have been looking at as part of their scrutiny reviews.
RESOLVED:
That the work programme as at 10 February 2021 be noted. |