The problems at Fishwick highlight a “systemic issue in how government works” because ministers and officials have never been around long enough to find a solution, says Miller.<\/p>\n
In 2018, the then-minister for energy and clean growth, Claire Perry, told MPs that 62 homes had received repairs following enforcement action by Ofgem.<\/p>\n
NEA later completed repairs on a further 45 homes in Fishwick, at an average cost of \u00a370,000 per property. The charity estimates it could cost up to \u00a322m to fully rectify problems in that area, but it has run out of funding to carry out further work.<\/p>\n
In 2019, a government-commissioned report estimated there was failure on all 350 properties in the Fishwick scheme, caused by poor design, assessment, ventilation and workmanship. It also suggested that many of the properties were unsuitable for the insulation in the first place. But the government never published the report or shared it with Fishwick residents.<\/p>\n
Tasneem Hussain had external wall insulation installed on her home in Fishwick at about the same time as the Rashid family. She says she has been forced to redecorate more than 20 times over the last decade because of damp in her home, caused by the insulation.<\/p>\n
She is also concerned about what effect the conditions could be having on her 14-year-old son, Mohammed, who has disabilities.<\/p>\n
“He’s prone to infections, and he had pneumonia a few months ago. I feel this is not going to be helping him,” says Tasneem.<\/p>\n
She says she does not know where to go or how to get help for her family’s situation: “It needs to be sorted.”<\/p>\n
Preston City Council told the BBC the external wall insulation scheme in Fishwick was a “significant failure”, but the council “did not directly deliver, oversee or have any project management oversight of the contractors and the work they completed”.<\/p>\n
It added: “It is hugely regrettable that neither the original installers nor indeed the government have provided the level of support so obviously required when the scale of failed external wall insulation became apparent.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The problems at Fishwick highlight a “systemic issue in how government works” because ministers and officials have never…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":537118,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[13,12,14],"class_list":{"0":"post-537117","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-news","8":"tag-headlines","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-top-stories"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115461976467096089","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/537117","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=537117"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/537117\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/537118"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=537117"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=537117"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=537117"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}