Grenfell, five years on: Leeds cladding campaigner claims 'David vs Goliath' battle with developers continues

The comments come exactly five years after the Grenfell Tower fire, which took the lives of 72 people, including 18 children, in the worst domestic blaze since the second world war - caused by the flammable cladding the building was encased in.

An interim report in October 2019, following a public inquiry, recommended changes to the law to require freeholders of large buildings to carry out regular inspections, and disclose materials used for their cladding.

The Government's Building Safety Bill puts more responsibility for fixing Britain's cladding crisis on the shoulders of the developers who created the problem in the first place, but campaigners have warned of a huge backlog of remedial work, which could last decades.

Speaking about her own home, campaigner and Leeds City Centre leaseholder Rachael Loftus said: "They are still no closer to doing what needs to be done and who is going to pay for it.

"There is no sign when the work will start - it could be many years before we know, and we are feeling very stuck at the moment."

She said the freeholders of her own building claim the work needed on just that one block would cost more than £112,000, and would not confirm whether they would pay.

"People like me can't sell our flats and it affects our ability to loan money or do anything," she said. "We are getting no straight answers from our freeholders at the moment. This is happening at a lot of buildings at the moment.

"Everybody is looking out for their legal liability. Because everyone is so focussed on not being to blame, no solutions are being put forward.

"We think the interim report's findings need to be followed - experts must identify the risks in the most high risk buildings, tackle and fix those first and find out who pays later.

"But that is not happening. If we continue at the rate of remediation between Grenfell and now, it will be 89 years before they get round to the buildings that were built at the same time as Grenfell - let alone the ones since.

"There is nobody who can put their lives on hold indefinitely and live with the stress of massive bills that may or may not come to them.

"I have paid out more than £15,000 in just interim measures, and that is before a single bit of work has been done to make my building safe.

"The only thing we can do is keep holding the government to their own promises that leaseholders like me should not have to pay, but that means they have to step up the pace, and that is something the government hasn't committed to doing.

"If it takes 89 years for me, that is really not helpful - I won't be here."

She believes the Government needs to put its foot down and commit to holding wealthy housing developers to account.

She added: "The people who are responsible are the people who cut corners and make massive profits from doing their job poorly. They all have legal departments to protect their interests.

"People like me who bought in good faith have got nobody protecting us. I don't have a lawyer to scrutinise documents - we get hundreds of pages sent to us, but none of them make it clear, so we still feel it is a David and Goliath situation."

A series of memorial events will be held to mark the fifth anniversary of the tower block blaze in west London.

A memorial service will be held at Westminster Abbey on Tuesday morning. At 2pm a 72-second silence will be observed at Westfield shopping centre, after which the names of the 72 victims will be read out over the public address system.