''We're innocent, why are our lives so dramatically ruined?'

The sudden evacuation of a £15m Manchester city centre apartment complex was caused by one wall - which wasn’t eligible for unsafe cladding funding.

A senior fire service official revealed on Tuesday (October 8) that one ‘courtyard’ wall inside Skyline Chambers, on Ludgate Hill in Angel Meadow, was not eligible for the government’s building safety fund (BSF) — a pot of cash available for freeholders, leaseholders, property managers, and housing associations to fix unsafe cladding if their block is more than 18m tall.

The fund can only pay for fixes to external walls and cladding, meaning the ‘courtyard’ wall was not eligible.

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Jenni Seex, the fire service’s head of protection, said: “Skyline Chambers was decanted 12 months ago. That building was in the BSF. Central government was taking action against the freeholder to do the works, but a wall inside the building was not [eligible for] the BSF. So there was an ongoing dispute with the freeholder about paying for the works.

"In essence, it meant millions of pounds to remediate one wall would have fallen on the leaseholders."

The building’s evacuation last October meant hundreds of residents were moved to hotels while work was completed. Wallace Estates, the freeholder of the development, previously said they took 'immediate action' to relocate all residents to alternate accommodation and followed advice from the fire service to 'ensure the safety' of those living there.

They added: "However, Wallace’s own independent fire safety advisors, brought in as part of the remediation project itself, have identified that the whole development was not built in accordance with either the original specifications or building regulations in place at the time.

"The extent of the fire safety defects mean it can no longer be considered safe. The freehold title was acquired by Wallace in 2009, long after the development had been completed and signed off by building control.”

New information has come to light at a meeting of Manchester council’s economy scrutiny committee, which examined how the city is dealing with the cladding crisis. A leading figure in the fight to fix dangerous blocks is Giles Grover, from Manchester Cladiators.

He told councillors of his ‘ruined life’, thanks to unsafe materials in his flat in the City Gate complex which has cost ‘£12.5n’ and taken ‘three-and-a-half years’ to remediate which ‘still [puts us] at the upper end of medium risk’.

“Your life choices are materially impacted,” he went on. “It’s young people who might want to start a family and they have to become accidental landlords. That’s then tying up properties for first-time-buyers. There’s a lot of people who are older and want to downsize. It’s people from all walks of life.

“We are the only innocent party. Why are our lives so dramatically ruined?”