The Royal College of Physicians (RCP) has called on Michael Gove to accelerate a promised crackdown on landlords failing to fix tens of thousands of mouldy homes with a warning that unless laws are toughened many more people will die from the effects.
As the housing ombudsman reported increasing failures among landlords to properly tackle damp, mould and leaks in England’s social housing, Prof Sir Stephen Holgate, special adviser on air quality to the RCP, warned of widening ill-health as more people inhale fungal toxins.
He said consequences include people suffering headaches, low energy, declining immunity and increased susceptibility among children to respiratory infections as well as deaths.
Prof Holgate said increased flooding, more householders keeping windows tightly shut to save energy and fungus becoming increasingly resilient to treatment – in homes as well as in the human body – as a result of widespread use of fungicides in farming, made reform more urgent.
In the nine months since March, the housing ombudsman for England, Richard Blakeway, made 721 findings of fault in how landlords tackled damp, mould and leaks, more than for the previous 12 months and several times more than in 2020-21. About 88,000 households in social housing are believed by the regulator of social housing to be living with serious damp and mould problems.
Last year, Gove, the secretary of state for levelling up, housing and communities, promised to introduce Awaab’s law setting tough deadlines for landlords to fix mouldy homes, after two-year-old Awaab Ishak died from prolonged exposure to black mould in his family’s Rochdale social housing flat.
The government is saying only that it will deliver the promise “as soon as practically possible”. Holgate said the vital reform was being held up by “obfuscation, debate and committees” and said there should be a “zero tolerance” approach to mould, as was the case in Germany.
On Tuesday, Gove announced an eight-week consultation on proposals to require social landlords to investigate hazards within 14 days, start fixing problems within a further seven days, and make emergency repairs within 24 hours, or pay compensation to tenants. It remains unclear, however, when any new law would come into effect.
The National Housing Federation, which represents social landlords, said it supported timescales for dealing with mould and damp “where appropriate”.
“Why haven’t we got it in place?” said Prof Holgate. “We know this is an ongoing problem. We know housing in this country is in a dreadful state … The science of [the risks of mould exposure] hasn’t been accepted strongly enough by the regulators. This passive approach is failing society.”
He said people in rooms that smelled strongly of mould were likely to be inhaling mycotoxins that can create non-specific ill-health such as headaches, as well as acute lung illnesses.
Announcing the consultation on Awaab’s law, Gove said he was taking “stronger and more robust action against social landlords who have refused to take their basic responsibilities seriously for far too long”.
Awaab’s family, who have warned tenants in mouldy flats to simply “get out” after his death in December 2020, said they supported the proposed new law and hoped it “will stop any other family going through the pain that we went through”.
The Nottinghamshire coroner last month warned of “a risk that future deaths could occur” after council tenant Jane Bennett, 52, died last year from respiratory failure that may have been caused by exposure to untreated mould in her home.
Now a single mother living in a mouldy council flat in Lewisham has told the Guardian she is considering putting her six-year-old son into care after he was diagnosed with breathing difficulties.
On Monday, Andy Burnham, the mayor of Greater Manchester, appeared to take things into his own hands in announcing a good landlord charter for his area that would set standards and timetables for repairs, based on the principle that “people’s homes should not damage their physical or psychological health”.
Prof Kamila Hawthorne, the chair of the Royal College of GPs, also said it was vital that landlords tackled mould “as soon as possible, to avoid the risk of a serious health impact”.
“Having significant damp and mould in a home can have a serious impact on a person’s health – especially if that person has an existing condition such as asthma or is in a high-risk group for respiratory infection,” she said.
