This is when work to remove 'fire risk' cladding from a Bexhill apartment block will end

Scaffolding has been erected outside the Landmark building in Egerton Road.

Oakfield Estate Agents, which manages the building, said it secured £6.4m in funding to completely replace the cladding.

Sam Hensher, financial director at Oakfield, said: “The project is nearing 50 per cent completion and remains on course to finish in February 2024.

“We continue to attend monthly site meetings with the entire project team, and these are also attended by committee members of the building’s tenant association, which helps keep everyone up to date as we move along.

“Despite all the disruption the residents have been so patient and we are grateful that this is moving along so well. There is a real joint effort from all involved and we are very lucky.”

In January this year, the Observer reported on how residents living in the complex said they faced crippling bills to pay for major repairs.

The Observer reported in early 2021 how residents in the building, which contains 66 flats, said they were ‘living in fear’ after surveyors recommended major repairs to the complex following a safety report in November 2020.

Since then, residents have seen their insurance costs rise, as well as bills for new safety measures increase. Some said their flats were now worthless, leaving them unable to sell up.

Oakfield said the company was appointed managing agents for the Landmark after the developers went into administration in 2012.

It said a waking watch and new fire alarm system were put in place. The former is a fire safety system in which trained staff patrol the floors and the outside of a building continually to provide warning in the event of a fire.

Oakfield added it was able to secure funding for the installation of the new fire alarm system via the Government’s Waking Watch Relief Scheme. However, it added leaseholders had to pay for the waking watch patrols themselves.

Further funding to replace the cladding was approved from the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (DLUHC) via the Government’s Building Safety Fund.