Actor whose own home has unsafe cladding hopes tragedy will not strike again
‘Allo ‘Allo! star Arthur Bostrom has spoken of the problems and increased costs for residents of apartment blocks following the Grenfell disaster.
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Your support makes all the difference.‘Allo ‘Allo! star Arthur Bostrom, who lives in an apartment with unsafe cladding and other fire safety issues, has said he hopes tragic incidents like the Grenfell Tower fire “won’t happen again”.
A long-awaited report was released on Wednesday which stated that the devastating Grenfell Tower fire which killed 72 people was the result of “decades of failure” by government and the construction industry to act on the dangers of flammable materials on high-rise buildings.
The 69-year-old, who starred as Officer Crabtree in the long-running 1980s BBC sitcom set in occupied France during the Second World War, owns an apartment on the top floor of a building at the Royal Quay development in Liverpool.
The seven-building residential unit is composed of about 200 flats, which was tested for unsafe cladding in the aftermath of the Grenfell fire.
The complex was found to have unsafe cladding as well as other fire safety issues, and is currently undergoing “expensive” renovations, Mr Bostrom told the PA news agency.
Mr Bostrom, a member of the Board of Directors of his apartment complex, said in response to the report: “I’m not surprised and I guess I’m over the shock because I knew that there was obviously a great deal of shoddy activity going on.”
The actor said he is “always shocked” to learn of unsafe conditions in buildings and “always shocked when it continues”.
He is “glad” the report has been published and hopes it gives an “absolute boost” to solutions regarding fire safety issues in residential buildings.
“We know from how Labour reported what the state of our country’s assets are in terms of how much money we don’t have,” he said.
“There isn’t much money, so whether the money will be available to do this…
“But I think it has to be because buildings must be made safe, because we know we are starving for good, safe buildings.
“So it must be done, and it also must be sorted, so that these things won’t happen again.”
Mr Bostrom’s building was subject to inspection following the deadly Grenfell fire.
“There was no suspicion in my mind of anything wrong with the building up until post Grenfell,” he said.
“We got tested just before lockdown in the first part of the pandemic and, extraordinarily, we got the result that our cladding had failed on the first day of the first lockdown, so that wasn’t great.
“We have a rendering on the outside of the building, so you couldn’t immediately tell what was underneath that.”
One survey criticised not only the building’s cladding, but also “many other aspects of the building” including the smoke extraction units, Mr Bostrom said.
According to Mr Bostrom the building was required to have new 24/7 fire patrols which monitored the building, initially costing £32,000 per month, but this was reduced after some residents began taking on the patrols on a voluntary basis.
There was an “enormous rise” in the building’s insurance, which had been £56,000 a year, before the insurance provider quoted £500,000 in the aftermath of safety inspections, so a different insurer was found charging £300,000, Mr Bostrom said.
He added that “very sensitive” fire alarms were fitted which alert the local fire service automatically, leading to up to two calls a week.
The additional costs have led to an increase in the service charge for residents, which reached a high of £2,500 every three months for Mr Bostrom.
Buildings over 18 metres are eligible for money for rectifying the unsafe cladding through the Government’s Building Safety Fund, but only two of the Royal Quay buildings qualified for this funding.
The safety fund does not cover the costs of other fire safety issues.
Describing the living conditions since renovations began on the building, Mr Bostrom said: “It’s five days a week, 8am till 6pm, it’s a lot of noise crashing around on scaffolding and the windows being covered, you can’t see out and things like that.”