Sheffield Council ready to release results of an investigation into tower block dangerous cladding

Hanover Tower, Exeter Drive, Broomhall, is home to about 350 people who have been waiting three years for the report to be published.

The investigation was launched in 2017 after the building failed fire safety tests introduced in the wake of the Grenfell fire disaster which killed 72 people in a tower block in North Kensington, London.

There have been numerous delays to the report since.

Coun Paul Wood, cabinet member for community safety, said in a cabinet meeting this week it was finally ready to be released.

He said the council would translate the report into the different languages of residents and then ask them if they would rather read the report now, or wait until a meeting can be held in person.

However, a meeting in person could be months away, due to social distancing restrictions brought in to prevent the spread of coronavirus.

Coun Wood said: “We made a commitment to have a public meeting with the residents of Hanover before we issue the report, that obviously isn’t going to happen in the foreseeable future.

“We’ve looked at whether we could do a Zoom meeting but that doesn’t work with all the residents.

“So what we have done is consult with the tenants and residents’ association in the past few weeks and they have given us all the different languages the report needs to be translated into and that’s being commissioned in the next week.

“When all those reports have been translated we are going to go back and consult with the residents to give them the option of sending the report out to them and taking phone calls with them or delay the report and have the public meeting as promised. If they decide they want to do that it will be months before it comes out with the way things are looking at the moment.

“We are going to give them the choice, we feel it’s the residents who need to make that decision and we will be consulting with them in the next few weeks. If they decide they are happy for us to send it out to them, then I think it would be in the public realm by the end of July at the latest.”

John Cawthorne, TARA treasurer, who has lived at Hanover for 30 years, said a traditional meeting could mean another long wait and that he would rather read the report sooner rather than later.

He said a Zoom meeting could be held with the TARA committee and other residents could book onto Zoom meetings about the report to allow everyone a chance to discuss it.

He said it was suggested the report be available in English, Arabic and Somali.

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