Grenfell, council made more on 2 house sales than it spent on cladding

The Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea (RBKC) last year raised more money from the sale of two council houses in the rich south of the borough than it spent on the devastated Grenfell Tower’s new cladding, financial records obtained by the Guardian have revealed.

The contrast between the council’s wealth and its drive to cut costs on the tower refurbishment has been laid bare in council documents that reveal the Conservative-controlled council raised £4.5m from the sale of two three-bedroom houses in affluent Chelsea. It spent just £3.5m on the whole of the cut-price cladding system for 120 homes, which burned with such ferocity last month in a blaze that claimed at least 80 lives.

Photograph: Wiktor Szymanowicz/Barcroft

The council has “usable reserves” of £274m and in 2014, when costs were being cut on Grenfell, its finances were so buoyant it awarded a £100 council tax rebate to residents paying the top rate.

They confirm that almost £300,000 was cut from the cost of the cladding system used on Grenfell Tower by changing from zinc to aluminium as part of what was described internally as a “value engineering process”. Zinc panels with a fire retardant core were replaced by cheaper aluminium panels with a core that has since proved combustible in government tests.

Cuts were made to the way the gas risers fitted inside Grenfell’s internal corridors were treated, the documents reveal. About £60,000 worth of intended works to duct panels and ventilation grills for the risers were omitted, according to the documents.

In 2012 the original contractor, Leadbitter, said the project would cost £11.3m and planning drawings at this stage show the architects and engineers had proposed cladding with a fire-retardant core. The overall cost of the project was rejected as too expensive by RBKC and it appointed Rydon instead on a tighter budget of £8.7m. That followed a “value engineering process”, according to a report by Kensington and Chelsea’s housing and property scrutiny committee.

Full article from theguardian.com

Grenfell Tower