Defective cladding work at Sterte Court to finish in summer

BCP Council and contractor United Living have confirmed to the Echo the last of the cladding panels at Sterte Court in Poole are expected to be delivered as planned at the beginning of April.

This came after the fabricator of the custom-made panels, H&H Architectural Systems, went into administration in October before the final five floors of the towers could be re-cladded.

United Living has made progress in recent months and almost all of the scaffold has been removed on the Bay View block. The remaining scaffold will stay in place until the new cladding panels have been delivered.

Sterte Court in Poole before re-cladding work

Some progress has also been made on the Sea View block and the scaffold has now been reduced until the remaining panels are delivered.

The council-owned residential towers have been the centre controversy since January 2021 when work started on the removal of non-compliant cladding in the wake of the Grenfell Tower disaster in 2017.

Extensive work to replace the cladding had previously been completed in 2015 but had to be removed when it was revealed to be substandard.

The latest project delays have cost the council more than £500,000.

Cllr Karen Rampton, member for people and homes, visited the site in mid-March.

She said: “BCP Council puts residents at the heart of everything that we do and it’s so important that they feel safe, with a lovely place to call home.

LtoR: Mark Sloane, BCP Homes resident liaison officer, Sterte resident Debra, Cllr Karen Rampton, and Ben Tomlin, BCP Council interim director of housing. (Image: BCP Council)

“I’m delighted to see how this project has come on, and although there’s still some scaffolding to be removed, I think the buildings fit in well with the general vision for Poole.”

As the contractor has now completed the fitting of all the panels available on site, United Living has made a start on the ground remediation works.

Completion of the project is still scheduled for mid-June 2023 – two and a half years after it began.

In response to the completion date, one resident said: “It’s ridiculous, we’ve put up with this for so long. To ask anyone to put up with it for what could end up being two and a half years is unacceptable.

“Let’s just hope this really will be it.”

Another resident, Debra, said: “There’s still work that needs to be done, but I think once it’s finished, once we get the site back as it was, I think we can start to relax a lot more. It looks absolutely great.”