‘I can’t see a way out’: Londoners in despair over homes built with dangerous cladding

Anxiety: cancer sufferer Laura Pearce and her husband Alex face a £100,000 bill to fix their flat
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London homeowners have told of their hopelessness in the face of the horrendous impact of the cladding crisis on their mental health.

One mother faces being forced to raise three children in a one-bed flat that she cannot sell, while a cancer sufferer said the stress caused by the cladding on her building “is having a more negative impact on our lives” than her illness.

Psychiatric nurse Gina Ofuono, 32, bought a 40 per cent share in a small one-bedroom flat in Croydon in October 2015 for £76,000. She has two young children aged four and two and a third baby due in March.  

She and her partner tried to sell their home just before the pandemic struck to move to another property with more space. However, they were told that the cladding on the seven-storey building meant it failed its EWS1 fire safety survey. Other problems with the structure of the building sent the potential repair bill up to £65,000 for each flat. The building’s owner has applied for the government fund to cover at least some of the costs but Gina’s fellow residents are pessimistic that they will be successful.

She said: “We will have to try with a small bed, bunks and a cot all in one room. There are boxes piled up on gas pipes and that scares me.

“My kids want to run around and are always knocking into things… I just can’t see a way out.”

Charity worker Laura Pearce, 31, bought her two-bed flat in a Greenwich block in January 2016 with her husband Alex for £340,000.

The building has cladding, wooden balconies and a lack of adequate fire breaks and will cost up to £4 million to put right. That will land the couple with a potential bill of about £100,000 at a time when she is receiving treatment for stage 4 breast cancer.  

She said: “Not only are my husband and I facing the harsh reality that my life will be significantly shorter, but we are facing the daily anxiety that our lives are at an even more heightened risk due to owning a flat which is covered in flammable and combustible material.”

“The fact that we could be going bankrupt is so stressful. It’s all out of our control, we feel so powerless.

“There needs to be a game-changer in the Government’s acceptance of responsibility. These buildings should never have been signed off.”

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