Frozen residents have yet to make up for the tower block’s plywood removal

People living in a council tower block left frozen without insulation for two winters are still waiting for compensation – five months after council bosses said they would get it.

Residents of Gilton House, a 60-year-old block of flats in Brislington where contractors stripped the cladding more than 18 months ago, said they hoped the scheme to compensate residents would have been resolved before May’s local elections. but now they are afraid. they may never get the money.

Bristol City Council said proposals on how the “goodwill payment” would be made to residents were “being finalised”. In September last year, fed-up tenants at Gilton House lodged a formal complaint against the council over its handling of the issue.

Read more: Residents face second winter in frozen tower block after council ‘mishandled’ cladding project

Read more: Bristol tower block residents file formal complaint over cladding delays

The Gilton House refurbishment project, on the A4 in Brislington town centre, has been plagued by delays and problems ever since the tower block was covered in scaffolding and sheeting in 2022. Work has started even though the council has not resolved the issue. the removal of mobile phone masts from the top, and the residents remained with the covers on top of the building for months without anything happening.

Then a series of fires in other tower blocks in Easton and Lawrence Hill led the council to order the complete removal of the plywood around Gilton House – which began in autumn 2022 and continued until early 2023. Work to replace the windows and of the roof and redevelopment of the building continues even now, almost two years after the first scaffolding was erected.

Last summer, residents of Gilton House told Bristol Live that the tower block was so cold without insulation that some of them are moving in rather than face another winter without insulation. They formally complained to the council about the way they were treated and their claims for compensation were discussed at a council meeting in January this year.

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On January 23, Bristol City Council’s cabinet meeting heard now former deputy mayor Craig Cheney set up a £500,000 hardship fund for council tenants, which would include £350,000 for people accessing the local crisis prevention fund, and “some set aside to increase energy bills in the affected blocks”.

“A newly introduced cladding support scheme will support residents affected by increased energy bills resulting from the removal of EPS cladding whilst it is replaced with an A-rated cladding system,” he said.

But the residents of Gilton House have yet to see a penny. One of the issues facing the council’s housing team is who should get how much money.

“Some of the people here in Gilton House have turned up their heating and incurred much higher energy bills as a result, while others couldn’t afford to do that or chose not to do that and tried to get over it by wearing extra clothes or going out, and so suffering in the cold,” explained Nigel Varley, a resident of Gilton House.

“The council could easily say ‘send us your bills and we’ll work out how much you’ve overpaid’ but that’s just not fair – what about people who have actually suffered physically but don’t have a bill bigger to show? It has to be fair and compensate everyone,” he added.

Now, with the scheme not drawn up by housing officers in the five months between the January and May elections, Gilton House residents fear they will never see any money. “The concern is that this is a box that is being thrown down the road by the new administration and housing officers and is being quietly forgotten about,” Mr Varley added.

A Bristol City Council spokesman said it was still being worked out by officers and how the “goodwill payment” is calculated would be considered by the new housing committee “in due course”.

Bristol Live understands that the council’s current idea is to pay residents a flat-rate compensation, which is linked to the average time between the removal of the cladding and then replacement, and which would apply to all tower blocks in Bristol, regardless of what. the heating system is in the building or how it was built.

“A policy and process for making payments to residents who may have been affected by the removal and replacement of cladding systems in their building is currently being developed by housing officers and will be subject to review by the appropriate committee in due course,” he said. said. “Detailed proposals on how this goodwill payment will be made to residents are being finalised,” he said, adding they were expected to be approved in the coming weeks.