Ministers have announced a review of landlord guidance on the health risks of damp and mould following the death of a young child. Two-year-old Awaab Ishak 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.
Rochdale Boroughwide Housing (RBH), which owned the flat, has been stripped of its funding and its chief executive, Gareth Swarbrick, was sacked after it emerged that he earned £170,000 during the year of Awaab’s death. In a response to a coroner’s decision in November that Awaab had died because of the mould, ministers Michael Gove and Steve Barclay set out five areas of concern.
They want to update current guidance to social homes to include damp and mould as well as review the housing health and safety rating system. They also said the housing sector cannot easily access relevant health information about damp and mould, that the private landlord sector does not have access to the Housing Ombudsman and that a policy among housing associations meant they would wait for their tenant’s complaints to be settled before fixing disrepairs.
