Independent Cllr Frank McBrearty has branded the Housing Agency’s approach towards defective concrete impacted homeowners as ‘unjust’ as homeowners face an uphill battle to get full demolition.
The Lifford-Stranorlar representative was speaking in the wake of a very well-attended public information meeting in the Volt House in Raphoe on Friday evening, which discussed taking a Judicial Review of testing protocol I.S. 465.
Cllr McBrearty said the ‘Frankenstein’ standard tests for mica only.
“Worryingly, what we are seeing now is some of the 90/10 applicants whose chartered engineers recommended Option 1 (Full Demolition) being downgraded by the Housing Agency, which was given responsibility for the second failed Government redress scheme – the Enhanced Defective Concrete Blocks Grant Scheme,” Cllr McBrearty said.
Cllr McBrearty said he believed homeowners who had not conducted any testing to date were very vulnerable, adding that Petrolab Mineralogy and Petrography Specialists, in Cornwall correctly identified the cause of defective concrete blocks and products as Internal Sulphate Attack.
“If foundations are not tested, they must be taken out and new ones put in under proper building control, however, that is only if homeowners get full demolition from the Housing Agency,” he said.
“Home owners who are new applicants to the Enhanced Grant Scheme will face an uphill battle to get an Option 1, full demolition because they do not have scientific testing conducted – especially the sulphate attack analysis which proves what the problem actually is, which is certainly not mica.”
Cllr McBrearty is advising defective concrete impacted homeowners to test for sulphate attack if they can afford it. He added that he was making political representations on behalf of those who have had their engineer’s recommendations of an Option 1 Full Demolition downgraded by the Housing Agency.
