All of the good work done in the aftermath of the Grenfell Tower fire risks being undone as ‘shady’ lobbyists try to seize control of government agenda, Sebastian O’Kelly of the Leasehold Partnership has warned.

Speaking at a recent The Leaseholders Charity event, O’Kelly, also a former property editor of the Mail on Sunday, said he wants to see a round-table meeting of all stakeholders to argue the assorted issues that have emerged from the building safety crisis.

We remain deeply concerned by the self-interested lobbying of freehold owning entities and the terracotta army of leasehold professionals.

O’Kelly (pictured) says: “We remain deeply concerned by the self-interested lobbying of freehold owning entities and the terracotta army of leasehold professionals – property managers, structural engineers, fire safety consultants, insurers etc ad nauseam – of whom it might be said that it is an ill wind that blows nobody any good.

“We strongly deprecate the Government’s consultative methodology of speaking to various interested groups in isolation and then drawing their own conclusions of where to head on.

“With trade groups and freeholders now deploying professional lobbyists – depressingly including former officials – to argue their case with civil servants and ministers there is always the danger of policy heading down a path comfortable to vested interests not the victim consumers.”

ROUND-TABLE

O’Kelly says that a round-table meeting of all stakeholders to argue the assorted issues that emerge from the building safety crisis would be open and transparent dialogue.

He adds: “Given that the whole housing market is now skewed by the building safety crisis – sales of flats are less that 50% of what they were in 2019 – and, according to several analysts, the cladding crisis is now impacting new housing supply this issue is surely a matter for open debate, not shady lobbying which has so unfailingly failed in the past.”