Housing Secretary Michael Gove has written to every English council leader and social housing provider to warn that deaths like that of two-year-old Awaab Ishak must never be allowed to happen again.
An inquest into the death of Awaab prompted national outrage this week after the coroner found that he died in December 2020 from a respiratory condition caused by mould in the one-bedroom housing association flat where he lived with his parents, Faisal Abdullah and Aisha Amin, in Rochdale, Greater Manchester.
Gareth Swarbrick, the chief executive of Rochdale Boroughwide Housing (RBH), was removed from his position on Saturday. Mr Gove, who this week said it “beggars belief” that Mr Swarbrick was still in his job, wrote a letter to all local authority chief executives in England as well as a separate letter to social housing providers.
