Stratford Halo Updates

We recently took the difficult decision to move residents from Sapphire Court for their own safety, and we have moved every household into longer-term alternative accommodation while further investigations are carried out.

Since before the issues at Sapphire Court came to light, there has been strict safety and risk management procedures in place at Opal, Ruby and Amber Courts, including ongoing monitoring of the buildings pending propping work in the basement area. Residents have been informed of these plans and investigations throughout.

We put a full risk management programme in place and have been carrying out precautionary safety checks, including remote monitoring and regular visual inspections for areas in Ruby, Opal and Amber Courts, and have informed residents about these checks. Working on the advice of the structural engineers responsible for the original design of the estate, and our third-party structural engineering advisers, this approach has ensured the safety of the resident in these buildings as they remained in their homes.

However, while our advisers have been satisfied with the ongoing monitoring and safety checks that have been in place since August, given the time that has elapsed without the remediation work being completed and with insufficient information being provided by the original structural engineers, they are no longer able to determine that Amber, Ruby and Opal Courts remain safe to occupy.

We have therefore made the difficult decision to relocate the residents of these buildings to temporary accommodation while we finalise the scope of required remediation and deliver the work.

We will be taking the same approach as we did with the previous relocations, with households being moved into short-term alternative accommodation and then soon transferred into a longer-term temporary home while we establish what remedial work may be needed to give the safety assurance that is necessary.  

An assessment has taken place regarding Halo Tower and no concerns have been identified that would require households to be relocated. Similarly, there are no concerns over Warton House, due to the differences in construction methods and design. As such, we do not anticipate that anyone living in either of those buildings will need to relocate.