The borough council was "kept out of the loop" on the standard of building quality at Crown Heights, a councillor has said.

As revealed by The Gazette last month, the block of 288 flats failed its fire safety checks in December 2020 after it was found to be wrapped in a flammable material.

But at a meeting on Thursday night, one councillor revealed that the authority had not been told about what material was going to be used in the apartment block.

Cllr Paul Miller said that the developer behind Crown Heights did not use the council's building control department, instead using an independent building inspector.

The inspector was regulated by the National House Building Council, whose guidelines are "arguably not fit for purpose", Cllr Andy McCormick added.

Cllr Miller, the chair of the authority's development control committee, called for "full transparency" from developers in the future.

It comes as councillors debated for the first time the "disgraceful saga" of Basingstoke's cladding crisis, unanimously pledging to work with the fire service to identify all tall buildings and ensure that fire surveys are conducted.

Speaking on Thursday night, Cllr Miller said that he was intending to "inject urgency into disgraceful saga of unsafe high-rise accommodation", adding: "The issue of poor or inadequate building standards relating to fire regulations being applied are inexcusable and it begs the question as to what authority is responsible for ensuring that the construction of these buildings was according to those regulations.

"The accommodation at Crown Heights was constructed between 2001 and 2003, and the development company elected to use the National House Building Council standards instead of the BDBC building control department.

"By employing NHBC for this purpose, BDBC was kept out of the loop as far as having any detailed plans of the structure and of the materials deployed, and that is the status today.

"The fact that sitting tenants and leaseholders are faced with increased service charges for ad hoc safety measures and confirmed by the EWS1 survey demonstrates that the building is fire unsafe until a permanent solution is implemented.

"These occupiers put their trust in the builders of Crown Heights, and other similar structures across the UK, and they should not be penalised for inadequate and in this context dangerous structural deficiencies relating to fire safety."

He was supported by Labour councillor Andy McCormick, who labelled the scandal as "the biggest [housing] crisis we have had in living memory", and said that the NHBC guidelines are "obfuscatory in their nature, very difficult to interpret and arguably not fit for purpose".

"Four years after Grenfell, 72 lives lost. There were previous fires, a whole series of them going over a number of years, and yet we still had fatalities.

"We haven’t put in place any lessons learned. This is the biggest crisis that we have had in living memory, in some ways it’s worse than the crisis at the end of the second world war.

"We have got people who are not able to feel safe in their own homes due to fire issues.

"It is completely unfair to expect a leaseholder or a tenant to foot the bill for a building when it is clearly the responsibility of the freeholder of that building, and these people are trapped through no fault of their own in properties they cannot sell or hold mortgage on."

The council also decided to:

  • To work with the Fire Service to identify all tall buildings in the Borough, and to apply pressure on the owners of all tall buildings to undertake the relevant fire safety surveys.
  • To effectively communicate with freeholders of tall buildings, and make clear the Council's expectation that they publish a clear timetable for residents, detailing any remedial action necessary and associated issues.
  • To make clear to freeholders, that it is the Council's view that the current situation is unacceptable and that the costs associated with remedial action for fire safety should not be met by residents.
  • With the fall of the Smith McPartland amendment in The House, for the Cabinet Member to write to our local Members of Parliament, asking for their support in this matter, lobbying the Government for the costs of remediation works to be met by the building owner and not passed onto residents.
  • For the Cabinet Member to write to HM Government and ask for clarity on the availability of building safety funding schemes for Crown Heights, and any other affected buildings in Basingstoke and Deane.
  • Send the matter to the EPH committee for regular updates.