The car park at Altitude on Parkstone Road, Poole, has reopened after six years. Wall repairs rose from £8m to over £13m, all paid by the Building Safety Fund.

Leaseholders at Altitude on Parkstone Road in Poole can park under their own building again. The car park reopened on Wednesday 14 October, six years after the cladding crisis shut residents out of it, when the Mayor of Poole cut the ribbon in front of around 30 leaseholders and residents.

The reopening marks the end of the external wall work on the block. The bill rose from an estimated £8 million to more than £13 million, and all of it was paid by the Building Safety Fund rather than by residents, according to the building’s managing agent, Rebbeck Brothers.

The Mayor of Poole holding scissors beside a cut red ribbon in the Altitude car park
The Mayor of Poole cuts the ribbon across the Altitude car park. Photo: supplied by Rebbeck Brothers

What they found behind the walls

When contractors stripped Altitude’s external walls they found combustible insulation, timber “where it should never have been” and an undercroft above the car park with no proper fire breaks, Rebbeck Brothers says.

The substrate behind the facade needed more work than expected. The vapour control layer had to be replaced and the steel-frame walls reinsulated, and the undercroft had to be redesigned partway through the programme. Those discoveries are what pushed the cost from about £8 million to more than £13 million.

Living on a building site

All 50 households stayed in their homes throughout. The fire risk was managed alongside the live construction work: the fire risk assessment was kept under review, simultaneous evacuation stayed in place and temporary alarms were fitted in the flats.

The contractor kept digital quality records as the work went along, so the building has a clear record for its “golden thread” of safety information, the agent says.

A woman holding a sheet of paper on the driveway in front of the Altitude block, with a red ribbon across the car park entrance behind her
The driveway into Altitude, with the ribbon across the car park entrance. Photo: supplied by Rebbeck Brothers

What it means for the owners

The new external walls have an A1 EWS1 rating, the best available, which means owners can sell and remortgage their flats again.

The work is not finished inside. The next stage is internal fire-stopping and compartmentation, and the current safety measures stay in place until that is done.

“People were genuinely frightened”

Joe Mellery-Pratt, managing director of Rebbeck Brothers, said: “People were genuinely frightened, about their safety and their finances. After six years of waiting, it was fantastic to see residents finally able to use their car park again.”

He thanked the project managers, Bennington Green, the contractor, Sinden Construction, and Homes England. He also thanked the volunteer Working Group of leaseholders, who he said “took on a problem they didn’t create and saw it through to the end”.