Queensland Road: A case study on building and fire safety remediation

Located next to Emirates Stadium, Queensland Road provides over 700 new homes, with 352 affordable and managed by Newlon Housing Trust. 

The south block consists of 179 rented and 32 shared ownership homes, while the north block contains 141 shared ownership properties.

Next month the Housing Forum is hosting a Housing Partnership Forum in partnership with Newlon that will centre on the housing association's approach to building and fire safety - with a focus on the Queensland Road development.

Symon Sentain, executive director property services, Newlon Housing Trust, answered a few questions ahead of the event.

Can you please tell me a bit about yourself, how you’ve come to be in the role you are in today and what that involves?

I have worked in Housing and Urban Regeneration for over 30 years at senior executive and non-executive director level for most of these. During this time, I have directed large-scale housing development and regeneration programmes across London, also doing stints in Bedfordshire and East Sussex.

I have been in my present role as executive director property services for just under three years after joining Newlon to direct a number of high-profile property compliance and fire safety projects and subsequent to that an estate regeneration exercise leading to the strategic asset management-led transformation of one of our key estates. I am responsible for all asset management and property compliance matters relating to Newlon’s stock including cladding and fire safety.

I understand you will be speaking about Newlon’s cladding remediation approach at The Housing Forum’s Partnership Summit next month. Can you explain outline at a top level what that approach has been?

Very early on (and before the Grenfell tragedy) Newlon undertook to do type 4 intrusive fire risk assessments for all of its tall buildings. This began to throw up issues, similar to those that have subsequently discovered nationally, that some properties were either missing vital components relating to fire safety or that had not been designed and constructed in line with the original specification.

Newlon’s approach has been to deal comprehensively with cladding and fire safety defects based on a vast amount of expert inspections, reports, recommendations, and advice, as well the drawing up of and costing of specifications.

This ensures that we are very clear on what the properties require to ensure that they comply with legislations and associated regulations.

It also means we can have sensible discussions and negotiations with original building contractors on settling costs or commencing commercial litigation; warranty providers in terms of insurance claims; and government relating to grant support where applicable.

It means that we have been very successful in achieving cost recovery on cladding and fire safety remediation works to our blocks.

Why have you chosen to share the case study of the Queensland Road apartments specifically? What makes that project one that is key to share?

We place residents at the centre of our work on cladding and fire safety remediation and our approach has been particularly successful on the Queensland Road scheme based on a strong partnership ethos between us, our lead consultant, John Rowan and Partners and principal contractor, Mulalley.

This was not always the case as when I first took up my present role, residents had been left frustrated at what they felt was a lack of information concerning the specific problems with the block; empathy, in terms of seeing the world through their eyes and progress on getting the works done. We changed all of this by working very closely with residents as a key stakeholder partner, ensuring we met with them at least once a month (and more frequently as specific situations demanded).

This included sharing the good news that we had secured full grant funding for the works via the Building Safety Fund, and that this did not mean that we would let up in our quest to ensure the original building contractor took responsibility for the original fire safety defects to the building. The residents were particularly keen on this, so the costs could be recovered to support fire safety remedial works taking place elsewhere.

It is also worth commenting on the importance of having a really good consultant team and principal contractor, which we have had in John Rowan and Partners and Mulalley on the Queensland Road scheme.

Can you please explain how you went about navigating funding, finding solutions, and delivering the Golden Thread?

As I mentioned earlier, we had completed a lot of the earlier "heavy lifting" associated with this work, in terms of intrusive inspections and drawing up, specifying and costing the works required, - even prior to Grenfell, which we ramped up significantly post the tragic events of 14 June 2017.

Since we already had a robust model for seeking cost recovery, we were well placed to bid for Social Housing Cladding Remediation Fund support and the later Building Safety Fund grant. We were also ready to commence negotiations with original building contractors, and submit claims to warranty providers.

This meant we were particularly adept at securing cost recovery early on for our affected buildings. As far as the Golden Thread is concerned we have a well-developed in-house project team that bring together our new build development and property maintenance teams to ensure we live the values of a lifecycle approach to fire and building safety.

It means that from the earliest inception of schemes we begin to discuss the implications for building and fire safety, as well as to review schemes where we identified problems to ensure we learn the lessons of what went wrong and factor in good practice thereafter, so these are not repeated going forward.

How do you ensure you have the appropriate team in place to deliver on this vital work both internally and externally?

This has been hard work! All new building and property maintenance teams across the country will have been on a steep learning curve post Dame Judith Hackitt’s report and the subsequent Grenfell Inquiry report.

However, as I had led on this work for some considerable time at Newlon, it meant we had a good idea of the range of construction professional disciplines needed for this work, which went well beyond the role of the fire engineer but also encompassed architects, engineers of all types, building services experts and, crucially, skilled resident liaison staff with excellent interpersonal communication skills.

The other crucial team members are residents directly affected and involved in remedial schemes of this nature. I cannot stress enough the importance of developing trust, showing respect and accountability to residents, and to keeping them fully abreast of the progress of this work in as real time as possible. Though residents will not always be happy with the information provided or opinions sought, the fact that that you have maintained an open and transparent dialogue will always help schemes run more smoothly.

How do forums like The Housing Forum’s Development Partnership Forum support Newlon’s work in this area?

The access that we all have as partners of the Housing Forum to expertise, professional opinion, constructive challenge, and best /exemplary practice, are all the reasons that we at Newlon strongly advocate signing up to the Forum as an active member. The various events that the Housing Forum organises sponsored directly by members never disappoint as places where you can genuinely learn about things you had not previously considered or that can act as good practice to take way and develop.

What would you most like The Housing Forum members to understand about Newlon’s experience at Queensland Road?

There are lots but in summary I would say:

• A well experienced client, consultant, and contractor team across the disciplines I referred to earlier in the process is key to successful and smooth running of schemes.
• Trust and cooperation between registered providers undertaking cladding and fire safety remediation schemes, their consultant teams, contractors, and residents will be hard fought, but well worth it if smooth progress is to be made. An example of this is the reduced natural light into homes while scaffolding is in place, which always impacts residents. Residents need to know and understand that what is likely to happen rather than experience it [as a surprise] first-hand and then, rightly, complain that they had no idea this was going to happen.

What are the key learning opportunities you see arising from your approach?

• Undertake intrusive inspections of all tall buildings as soon as possible.
• Ensure the defects found are reported on and that specifications and high-level estimate costs are provided.
• Ensure that the consultant teams appointed cover the range of construction professions. Often, too much reliance is passed on the fire engineer when actually an engineer, architect or other discipline could be better placed to give expert opinion.
• Engage with residents early giving sufficient information so they feel informed, engaged, respected and as part of a team, not sitting on the outside of what is happening on the scheme prior to works and during the process
• Explore all avenues of cost recovery to offset balance sheet pressures
• Appoint a contractor who is more concerned with doing a good professional job and upholding its reputation rather than finding ways to make more profits and submit time and cost claims. This implies that contracts are devised to share risk and reward and develop best practice and learning during the course of schemes.

To hear more from Symon Sentain head to the Housing Forum’s Housing Partnership Summit with Newlon in London on 6 February 2025.

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