The Secret Architect: Up retrofit creek without a paddle

Our retrofit project was scheduled to complete on site today. Instead, we just submitted planning, and there’s an air of melancholy as we agree to proceed with detailed design at risk (mostly ours, fixed fee).

I’m actually in quite good spirits about it, given the state of the project six months ago; we’ve even got a contractor appointed. I shall have to make another sacrifice to the Brexit gods to keep the high-performance window supply chain open between Poland and the UK.

I’m also excited because, after more than a year of trudging through the bureaucracy of a desperately underfunded local authority client, we have finally made headway. The procurement department agrees we should have a contract – hurray! The Head of Housing now understands what planning is – hurray! They’ve even given us the asbestos reports finally (less hurray …)

BUT ANYWAY, nothing is spoiling my good mood. Planning application – TICK!

A bloke in a fleece joins our design team meeting, we all introduce ourselves and he just nods sagely. After some coaxing, we get a phlegmy sigh and a begrudging ‘I’m from Building Control’. Oh dear. It’s not easy for the council BCOs – they’re wading through their own interminable trench of ‘show me the warranty’ and ‘that’s not flame-retardant enough’.

Working with existing buildings is even worse – not only do we have all the ‘it was compliant in the 50s’ issues to deal with, some of the residents have gone rogue and ‘customised’ their socially rented semi-detached homes.

One pair have knocked through their shared loft and installed ladders either side to make an ‘up and over’ arrangement that only two of the four tenants know about. I know better than to pull at that thread, although I really want to.

All the houses have asbestos in the windows, gutters and – plot twist – roof lining, so what we thought would be a tidy retrofit is now a full-building renovation.

Some of the tenants have taken it upon themselves to play fast and loose with their bathroom drainage too, which explains the rising damp and the faint smell of synthetic lavender outside number 136. The contractor has refused to retrofit one house because of the violent dogs, another because one tenant doesn’t want to (temporarily) remove what was described as ‘an excess of beaded curtains’.

You don’t get this with new build, that’s for sure.

Luckily, the Department for Business is on hand to improve morale and ensure good process by threatening to take our funding away. One of the many central government consultants – appointed to monitor how much money and time we’re wasting – is at pains to point out that now we’re firmly up the creek, not only will she confiscate the paddle, she will beat us with it first (in the form of a 14-page ‘lessons learned’ report).

Apparently, all of this is very disappointing to the minister, who holds that retrofit is not that hard, you just need to get on with it and stop worrying about the details #grenfell.

Still, with the recently published Levelling Up White Paper hot off the press, I’m chuffed to see housing is key to delivering Mission 7 – closing the Healthy Life Expectancy gap. All this messing about with damp and draughts and council mergers might actually beat a path for meaningful improvements to normal, everyday housing. Now I just need to explain the Party Wall Act to the council’s Head of Estates, and we’ll really be flying!