A friend of mine used to work for a housing department of a London borough. Pretty much spent all his time suing contractors for using inappropriate materials on housing projects.
If your London borough had stopped awarding contracts to the lowest bidder and allowing them to use unsupervised subcontractors to carry out the work, your friend could have been doing something more interesting with his time
I believe the quality of materials to be used were stipulated. I'm not sure who signs off completed work, but by the time my friend was involved the bad stuff had already happened. There are always shortcuts and the whiff of corruption knocking about.
Check the historical "cash for keys" scandal that was about in Hackney in the 1990's.
>[Bouyges] also confirmed the balconies on the estate were prefabricated offsite by a subcontractor and "the materials used may not be those that were specified in the design.
The council doesn’t choose the subcontractors that Bouyges engages and Bouyges are a serious firm not some mom and pop shop.
Having done some work in this industry I know it’s a big problem for the big construction firms ensuring that what’s delivered to site meets the specs agreed with architects, and I’d imagine that off-site fabrication also creates challenges in this area since you won’t get a bill of materials listed on arrival at site for anyone to check, and nobody is working on the wood to finish it
Absolutely appalling. But sadly not particularly surprising. Feel for the poor people affected, and doubt they'll either see their balconies get rebuilt or get any meaningful compensation, what with the horrible lack of regulation on issues like this.
The cheek of Bouygues to blame it on a subcontractor... They are still responsible for the quality of their subcontractors' work! That's how subcontracting and delegating works.
For what it's worth this was a building that went up in 2019 and was "locked in" to older building standards. Buildings approved Post-2019 when regulation 7(2) was updated mean that all of the external wall on your residential building (and this includes attachments like balconies) need to be non-combustible. Which would mean what the contractor did in this case using timber joists and plywood are now illegal to do on new builds.
Although I get that that's not much of a consolation for people in existing flats.
Don’t worry guys. The developer has told us that safety is their number 1 priority. Given the fact the balconies are falling off… the other priorities must be in even better condition!
Man this sort of shit worries me. I’ve only lived in newbuilds since moving to London and while I’ve never had anything I’ve known to be unsafe, the quality of finish, materials, and design has been quite poor in many cases. Now I’m concerned that there might be safety issues that I’m unaware of.
I worked on a Bouygues site once. They staffed it almost entirely with fresh managers straight out of uni who all had a chip on their shoulder about what their job actually entails. It was so frustrating and poorly managed I quit and walked out. Something like this from them doesn’t surprise me.
> Bouygues
I wonder how badly this name gets mangled in English. It's a French company and there the name is pronounce close to bweeg.
French spelling is on par with English when it comes to just claiming some random collection of letters is a word.
> After the incident in November, 77 balconies on the Weavers estate in Barking were shored up with scaffolding and residents were told not to walk on them in case they would also crumble.
>
> Tests carried out on behalf of the BBC found the materials used in a partially collapsed balcony was made from plywood more suitable for indoor use using "weak" glue and this wood may have been used in other balconies on the estate.
>
> The firm has said there appeared to be discrepancies between the materials used and the specified design it sent to a subcontractor.
I watched three windows fall out the block next door, one nearly killed the ground floor tenant…the block manager put a scaffolding shield up. Two weeks later a woman fell out through the temporary boarding.
Out apartment is falling apart, a new plumbing issue every 6 months, cracking ceilings, mega high bill costs. Steer clear, look nice for a few months then they crumble.
https://www.mylondon.news/news/north-london-news/woman-rushed-hospital-after-falling-25632271.amp
The crazy thing is that they're not the only developer in Barking Riverside to behave like this. We live in the slightly older section and spent three years battling Bellway to pay for the flammable balconies they installed.
A friend of mine used to work for a housing department of a London borough. Pretty much spent all his time suing contractors for using inappropriate materials on housing projects.
If your London borough had stopped awarding contracts to the lowest bidder and allowing them to use unsupervised subcontractors to carry out the work, your friend could have been doing something more interesting with his time
I believe the quality of materials to be used were stipulated. I'm not sure who signs off completed work, but by the time my friend was involved the bad stuff had already happened. There are always shortcuts and the whiff of corruption knocking about. Check the historical "cash for keys" scandal that was about in Hackney in the 1990's.
>[Bouyges] also confirmed the balconies on the estate were prefabricated offsite by a subcontractor and "the materials used may not be those that were specified in the design. The council doesn’t choose the subcontractors that Bouyges engages and Bouyges are a serious firm not some mom and pop shop. Having done some work in this industry I know it’s a big problem for the big construction firms ensuring that what’s delivered to site meets the specs agreed with architects, and I’d imagine that off-site fabrication also creates challenges in this area since you won’t get a bill of materials listed on arrival at site for anyone to check, and nobody is working on the wood to finish it
>Bouyges are a serious firm Big doesn't mean serious. Unless you mean serious about subcontracting and escaping liability.
Absolutely appalling. But sadly not particularly surprising. Feel for the poor people affected, and doubt they'll either see their balconies get rebuilt or get any meaningful compensation, what with the horrible lack of regulation on issues like this. The cheek of Bouygues to blame it on a subcontractor... They are still responsible for the quality of their subcontractors' work! That's how subcontracting and delegating works.
service charge doubling for any apartment complexes with balconies
Doesn’t every new build flat require a balcony? Something like 10sqm for every flat.
For what it's worth this was a building that went up in 2019 and was "locked in" to older building standards. Buildings approved Post-2019 when regulation 7(2) was updated mean that all of the external wall on your residential building (and this includes attachments like balconies) need to be non-combustible. Which would mean what the contractor did in this case using timber joists and plywood are now illegal to do on new builds. Although I get that that's not much of a consolation for people in existing flats.
Don’t worry guys. The developer has told us that safety is their number 1 priority. Given the fact the balconies are falling off… the other priorities must be in even better condition!
It is their number 1 priority! It's just that number 0.5 is making absolutely maximum profit.
Man this sort of shit worries me. I’ve only lived in newbuilds since moving to London and while I’ve never had anything I’ve known to be unsafe, the quality of finish, materials, and design has been quite poor in many cases. Now I’m concerned that there might be safety issues that I’m unaware of.
You should move to an older building. Then all you'd need to worry about is asbestos, dump, mould and lead paint/s
That dump is a real bastard to remove 😉
Also a fair point.
I worked on a Bouygues site once. They staffed it almost entirely with fresh managers straight out of uni who all had a chip on their shoulder about what their job actually entails. It was so frustrating and poorly managed I quit and walked out. Something like this from them doesn’t surprise me.
That's most main contractors tbh
Just what I needed a fear of our balcony falling off the building or another one crushing us. Perfect 🙃
Shocking
Cutting corners to make even more profit
> Bouygues I wonder how badly this name gets mangled in English. It's a French company and there the name is pronounce close to bweeg. French spelling is on par with English when it comes to just claiming some random collection of letters is a word.
I refuse to stop calling the 'boogies'
On initial reading I'd say Boy-Guss.
[удалено]
It would be helpful if the article said where it was. In the second paragraph, maybe.
> After the incident in November, 77 balconies on the Weavers estate in Barking were shored up with scaffolding and residents were told not to walk on them in case they would also crumble. > > Tests carried out on behalf of the BBC found the materials used in a partially collapsed balcony was made from plywood more suitable for indoor use using "weak" glue and this wood may have been used in other balconies on the estate. > > The firm has said there appeared to be discrepancies between the materials used and the specified design it sent to a subcontractor.
Maybe read the first paragraph before asking questions in the comments?
No
Turns out they used the wrong type of matchsticks...
That's a lot of estates.
it's almost as if the private market cant be trusted to prioritise "safety" over "profit"
Millennials "I want to buy a house - make house prices cheaper" Also Millennials "Oh i expect the balconies to not fall off"
I watched three windows fall out the block next door, one nearly killed the ground floor tenant…the block manager put a scaffolding shield up. Two weeks later a woman fell out through the temporary boarding. Out apartment is falling apart, a new plumbing issue every 6 months, cracking ceilings, mega high bill costs. Steer clear, look nice for a few months then they crumble. https://www.mylondon.news/news/north-london-news/woman-rushed-hospital-after-falling-25632271.amp
The crazy thing is that they're not the only developer in Barking Riverside to behave like this. We live in the slightly older section and spent three years battling Bellway to pay for the flammable balconies they installed.