Troops still living in high rise buildings with flammable cladding

Concerns have been raised that troops are being housed in high-rise buildings with flammable cladding more than four years after the Grenfell Tower disaster.

The Ministry of Defence (MoD) said 755 buildings with sleeping accommodation in the UK are either fully or partially covered in “combustible” cladding.

Of those, 27 are high rises – defined as six floors or above – and remedial work has started on just one, with investigations still under way on the extent of the changes needed for the other 26.

The high rises are used for single living accommodation for personnel living on military bases in the UK, the MoD said.

Labour’s shadow defence secretary John Healey said: “Four years on from the Grenfell tragedy and the MoD still has not removed flammable cladding on skyrises that house forces personnel.

“Labour has proposed the Government set up a national cladding taskforce with a legally enforceable deadline for removing all unsafe cladding, which should include all MoD property.

“The response from Government to the Grenfell Tower fire has simply been too slow and insufficient, with work still only started on just one of the 27 tower blocks.”

The figures were brought to light in a response to a written parliamentary question submitted by Labour MP Luke Pollard.

Defence minister Jeremy Quin said: “In the United Kingdom the Ministry of Defence has 755 buildings with sleeping accommodation that are either fully or partially clad with combustible cladding.

“Of these 27 are high rise (defined as being six floors and over) on all of which the MoD are carrying out remedial work or investigating remedial options.

“A programme of work to understand the extent of combustible materials in external wall systems is being completed for the remaining 728 low rise buildings.””

The June 2017 fire at Grenfell Tower, west London, left 72 people dead.

Work has been undertaken to remove unsafe cladding from buildings across the country following the disaster although concerns persist about the speed of the remedial work.

Published: 31/10/2021 by Radio NewsHub