Pete Apps

Hong Kong's horror fire:

peteapps.substack.com/p/hong-kongs...

Reliance is placed on “an unsuitable and insufficient fire risk assessment prepared by a scaffold contractor”. Obviously not saying a Hong Kong style incident is possible or likely - I simply don't know. But worth asking how safe we are and what we could do to remove the risk

The whistle-blower warned of “numerous residential buildings operating 'stay put' procedures undergoing works that have scaffolding formed of timber boards with plastic wrapping which could present a medium for fire spread” and warned that the guidance on this issue was “not fit for purpose”.

The potential impact of scaffolding on fire safety An issue has been raised with CROSS regarding the risk assessment process when scaffolding is present around an in-use building. It is considered that combustible scaffolding elements can potentially ...

Amid the disturbing images from Hong Kong, I'd draw attention to this report from the anonymous reporting service for the construction sector which raises concern about the use of combustible scaffolding systems on buildings with a 'stay put' strategy

www.cross-safety.org/uk/safety-in...

Building Safety Remediation: monthly data release - October 2025 The 96th monthly data release regarding building safety remediation.

I'm getting the figures from the link below, using the midrange estimate.

The entire thrust of the interview is how the BSR might fix its structural issues and become an effective regulator doing a good job.

www.gov.uk/government/p...

There are more than 4,000 buildings in the 11m to 18m basket which need expensive remediation. The question should be how to get the BSR timescales down (which Roe addresses at length) not saying "ooh, isn't regulation silly, why do we need it" in midst of a pretty unprecedented build quality crisis

And while the BSR process has not worked brilliantly, that change was always going to be some version of "sort out design and compliance before you start building". Which was always going to result in delay, but may moves us forward to a point where we don't botch more than half the blocks we build

Given the scale of failure in terms of badly built blocks in the 2000s and 2010s, surely some change was needed though? Leaving aside the human cost, the bill for fixing them is £16.6bn, and the economic consequences have been vast (from flat sales falling through, diverted funds from new build etc)

BSR chair Andy Roe on the future of the regulator The Building Safety Regulator raised eyebrows over the summer when it appointed two former leaders of the London Fire Brigade to senior positions. Peter Apps meets them to ask what comes next.

Full interview in IH here: www.insidehousing.co.uk/insight/the-...

“It is really straightforward,” he says. “I would make those people stand in front of the tower. I would make them stand and look at it, because it is the most profound manifestation of system failure. We can’t repeat that, and that is something people are too quick to forget. “I think one of the great advantages of our background is that it’s not hypothetical for us. I have stood next to Charlie in too many awful spaces over the years, on too many streets in London thinking, ‘How do we get to this?’ ‘How did people end up living like this?’ “And while the Building Safety Regulator wasn’t working as it should, that should not be a reason in the short term to just step away and abandon it. The moral imperative is too great.” This afternoon, he says, he is going to a boxing club with his son. Mr Roe has boxed and coached boxing his whole life. When he attended Grenfell, he knew where he was immediately because of the Dale Youth Boxing Club at the base of the tower – a gem in Britain’s feted amateur boxing circuit that has produced multiple world champions from the streets of west London. “When I go into that space this afternoon, I’m going to be with people in an environment I’ve known since I was a kid,” says Mr Roe. “The warmth, the humour, the banter, the energy. And I know there’s estates and blocks all over this country that are exactly the same. And when I think about what motivates me, it’s that, it’s those spaces. It’s protecting them, and making sure they are safe.”

"I would make those people stand in front of the tower. I would make them stand and look at it"

Building Safety Regulator chair, Andy Roe, asked to respond to commentators who call for the regulator to be axed:

Thank you John, means a lot

The new social housing programme looks more and more like a genuine step forwards New government funding will support the development of tens of thousands of socially rented homes a year. Plus, the descent of Assent

There's no-one I trust more on contemporary housing policy than @peteapps.bsky.social. This is an important read: 'The new social housing programme looks more and more like a genuine step forward'.
open.substack.com/pub/peteapps...

Thanks for sharing Duncan, much appreciated!

Latest Substack, looks into plans to let builders sell 'affordable' homes on the open market - and asks whether there is an 'idolatory to victimhood' in UK politics:

peteapps.substack.com/p/sweeties-f...

Lovely to see Homesick picked as one of the politics 'books of the year' by Waterstones:

"[Apps] delivers a blistering analysis of the capital's housing market over the last four decades through the mixed experiences of a diverse group of Londoners."

www.waterstones.com/blog/the-bes...

October including a fantastic book by a brilliant colleague, @peteapps.bsky.social

I also very much recommend the Sun King by Nancy Mitford, in case anyone wants to talk about Louis XIV I am ready now

A clumsy patching up of a broken system: Khan and Reed cut London's affordable housing targets PLUS: leaked audio reveals a Clarion manager encouraging colleagues to produce fake evidence of displaying fire safety notices

I've tried to argue why I think the cut to affordable housing targets in London is a really terrible idea in a considered, rather than shouty, way here.

A clumsy patching up of a broken status quo:

open.substack.com/pub/peteapps...

Could Zurich’s housing cooperatives be the solution to the rest of Europe’s housing crisis? | Peter Apps One in every five citizens in the city has bought a share in the company that built and owns their apartment block, says Inside Housing’s Peter Apps

In Zurich, Switzerland, one in every five citizens live in a housing co-operative, meaning they own the company that owns their home. The result is a different kind of housing market:

www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

The Building Safety Regulator and delays to fixing existing buildings. What's gone wrong and how to fix it? Routine repairs to blocks of flats are taking years to be approved. Fixing this requires structural changes as well tweaks to the new regulatory system.

Substack on the Building Safety Regulator - and the impact the Gateway process is having on maintenace work to existing buildings:

peteapps.substack.com/p/the-buildi...

'Don't tell anyone': Manager at UK's largest housing association told staff how to fake fire safety notice A chartered surveyor tells Sky News the consequence of the information not being available in the event of a fire could be "death or serious injury".

"If you don't get access tomorrow, just put it up on a plain bit of wall, take a picture, it's done... I'm trying to help you hit your targets"

Deeply disturbing audio recorded by a Clarion employee and leaked to Sky News:

news.sky.com/story/dont-t...

Why are hundreds of existing buildings stuck waiting for approval to make them safe? The Building Safety Regulator’s ‘Gateway 2’ process is causing severe delays to essential safety works. Peter Apps investigates why.

Of the projects awaiting Building Safety Regulator approval, 159 are new builds and 869 relate to works to existing buildings. Delays are pushing safety projects back by up to a year. What is going on, and how could it be fixed?

A long-read for IH:

www.insidehousing.co.uk/insight/why-...

Reversing Right to Buy may sound radical. But it could fix the housing shortage Reversing Right to Buy would be expensive, but it would provide immediate results and would pay dividends over time.

Bit by me in the Big Issue:

Municipalisation of private housing would be a fast, direct route out of the homelessness crisis. The government should support it

www.bigissue.com/news/housing...

Hot property: London’s housing problem? It’s going to get worse The affordability and supply problem are not the full story. The flats we’ve built could be uninhabitable by 2050. We need to talk about this more, writes Peter Apps

Something we do not talk about enough with regard to London's housing crisis is climate change

The combination of a hotter, wetter world and housing insecurity should be a very serious concern:

www.thedeveloper.live/opinion/hot-...

Peter Apps: Home making and unmaking.

Full episode here: open.spotify.com/episode/0cKb...

We were discussing my book, Homesick, which is out now here: uk.bookshop.org/p/books/home...

YouTube video by Peter Apps Why London's house prices got out of control... in eight minutes

Really good to chat about how the housing crisis has reshaped the London of my childhood on the
A is for Architecture podcast:

youtu.be/rFTYmmhbrZc

Build, baby, build (with lower rates of affordable housing in London) The housing secretary's Alan Partridge populism is not the answer we need

New Substack: Why the housing secretary's Alan Partridge populism is not the answer we need - especially with regard to affordable and social housing in London:

peteapps.substack.com/p/build-baby...

Text extract reading: Working out the way forward isn’t easy, but it is the job of serious politicians to at least try. That requires strategy, trade-offs, imperfect answers, compromise and a willingness to at least hear dissenting voices – not branding everyone who questions you a ‘blocker’ or NIMBY, and hiding behind a slogan that is as childish as it is facile. For Reed, the buzz of his cosplay populism will soon fade. He has had his fun being cheered by delegates and surrounded by sycophantic think tank wonks who share his taste for silly hats. But the reality of the state of the economy and the size of the mess he has inherited will soon dawn on him. In the coming weeks, he is likely to meet with leaseholders whose lives have been turned upside down by the building crisis, as well as survivors of the Grenfell Tower fire. When he attends these meetings, he would be well advised to leave his new baseball cap at home

Build baby build is not a housing strategy

Bit by me for the Spectator:

www.spectator.co.uk/article/buil...

A modern high-rise trilogy part three: Skyline Chambers Our journey through three buildings impacted by the building safety crisis in different ways concludes in central Manchester

Manchester's building boom is sometimes called a miracle. Instead, it's created a city of renters and a huge building safety crisis.

The last instalment of my high rise trilogy looks at one block emptied two years ago where residents are yet to return:

peteapps.substack.com/p/a-modern-h...

In other words: maybe if we'd not cut the funding to build new social housing, we wouldn't now be handing billions to some of the country's worst private landlords to house the homeless families who can't get a social home

English councils’ temporary accommodation bill rises to £2.8bn Councils in England spent a record £2.8bn on temporary accommodation last year, with the annual bill rising by 25% as the homelessness crisis deepens.

Can't think of many better illustrations of how badly we have botched housing policy than the fact that our bill for housing homeless families (£2.8bn pa) is now higher than the money we spend each year on new affordable housing (£2.3bn)

www.insidehousing.co.uk/news/english...