EXCLUSIVE
Bosses of beleaguered Margate tower block, Arlington House, have been issued with notice of further enforcement by the Building Safety Regulator due to failures to rectify structural and fire risks.
The BSR lists six compliance notice areas that have not been dealt with to a satisfactory level despite orders to deal with the risks being issued last year.
BSR has now issued the further enforcement notice and says the outstanding issues need to be remedied by December 4.
The regulator says although some progress has been made it is still not satisfied with measures for:
- prevention of structural failure
- prevention of spread of fire
- Duties relating to the management of building safety risks (four separate compliance issues) including lack of a systematic approach to identifying and assessing building safety risks; not completing key surveys, investigations and assessments; failing to provide evidence that suitably competent individuals are in place to monitor and investigate adverse trends, manage control measure failures, and respond effectively to urgent issues and incidents; and having no consideration of the timescale and priorities for action, the resources required, the interim measures to manage risks and the justifications where actions are not being taken forward.
The extensive list of further improvements required will be bad news for lessees in the block who were already charged over £100,000 last year for previous works, reports and investigations.
Lessees must also pay some £38,000- half this month and half in March – following a First Tier Tribunal ruling that the service payments per each owned flat in the Margate block are ‘reasonable.’
The huge sum is to cover some £5m in repair fees, costs that are borne by flat owners through service charges.
Long time Arlington resident John Moss said he discovered the notices pinned to the notice board on Friday evening (4th September).
He said: ”They appear to have been surreptitiously pinned up by the caretaker before he went home. Nobody from Freshwater has bothered to tell leaseholders about this latest development. I had to remove the notices and copy them for myself in order to find out what is going on.”
The notices are dated 26 August 2026 and follow in the wake of notices issued in April and June last year. The previous notices gave Freshwater deadlines of August and September 2025 to carry out assessments and implement works and improvements. The BSR is not happy that matters have improved.
The new notices give a new deadline of 4 December 2026 for action to be taken. The notices threaten Metropolitan Property Realizations Ltd (part of the Freshwater Group) with imprisonment or fines or both if the requirements are not met by the deadline.
Mr Moss added: “Last year residential lessees were charged over £100,000 for various surveys, reports and investigations. It now transpires that those reports have not satisfied the BSR. As such, it is money wasted.
“These are all Freshwater’s failings. Lessees should not be paying the price for these inadequacies.
“We also received additional bills as a result of nearly half a million pounds being spent on a waking watch. Now the BSR is questioning the withdrawal of the waking watch. Lessees simply cannot afford for it to be reinstated.
“We are already facing bills of up to £38,000 each before the end of this month for the building repairs. Insult is added to injury when we are still in the situation that nobody is talking to us . . . they just keep demanding money!’
“’I have calculated that some £1,000,000 will have been expended over the past two years in connection with the waking watch and numerous reports – and yet we are no further forward. We are no nearer to a solution. All that money has been wasted.”
Landlords Metropolitan Property Realizations Limited (MRPL)—a subsidiary of the Freshwater Group— holds the site on a 199 year lease. The land was initially leased from Margate Borough Council, and arrangements passed on to Thanet District Council. TDC is the freeholder.
The block has 105 lessees and 36 flats retained by company Freshwater.
In February MRPL/Freshwater bosses were quizzed by councillors over concerns including the deterioration of the main concrete structure and the cladding panels “to such an extent that they both present a risk to the health and safety of residents and members of the public.”
Other issues included inadequate fire safety measures, concern relating to one flat on each floor not being fitted with smoke detection or sounders; smoke control as many windows in the escape staircases cannot be opened due to disrepair and service ducts which are not fully protected and could allow the spread of fire and smoke.
A waking watch of four fire marshals to patrol the building 24/7 at a fee of £48,000 a month – a cost borne by flat lessees- was in place last year but this was officially stood down early this year after alarm upgrades and a shift back to a simultaneous evacuation strategy.
However, a council report in August revealed that a draft fire risk assessment for the building in June highlights a number of fire safety deficiencies and includes a recommendation for the reintroduction of a waking watch or the provision of dynamic fire exit signage.
A compliance notice was issued after the Building Safety Regulator refused to issue a safety certificate for the 18-storey high-rise tower block and ordered Metropolitan Property Realizations Ltd (MPRL) to undertake a full structural survey and a full fire safety compartmentation survey.
Thanet council also issued a Hazard Awareness Notice.
Kent Fire & Rescue Service audited the premises under the Fire Safety Order on 28 April and served a Notice of Deficiencies on 6 May.
In 2019 MPRL was issued with an enforcement notice for 15 fire safety failures following an inspection by a fire safety officer.
MPRL/Freshwater has been contacted for a response.
Thank you Kathy once again for a most detailed account of the latest events.
Freshwater are probably the worst, most aggressive landlords ever.
£48,000 for 4 24/7 fire marshalls! £12,000 a month per fire marshall! Where do I sign up?
Needs to be demolished. It was poor quality when built and is past its use by date. Hopefully residents have kept up their insurance payments.
£3000 per week per Fire Marshall !! Somebody was raking it in as not one of them was earning that. Those residents are being taken to the cleaners by the management company
It’s all performative process.
Freshwater Daejan is an immensely wealthy multinational conglomerate, with its head office on the same London block as the Law Courts. Fine them £1B and they’ll just laugh.
Freshwater knows that it has the freeholder – T.D.C. – over a barrel. The only real weapon that the Council has is repossession due to failure to maintain. If it were to do that, the entire cost of the statutorily required repairs would fall to Council Tax payers.
By far the cheapest option would be to repossess and demolish. Regardless of the listed building piece of paper… Which is only a piece of paper.
If you look up Freshwater Group Ltd that company is Disssolved. Metro Realisations (Mrpl) It’s all a bit sketchy, something tell me alot of people are going to be homeless and scammed out of the money they are going to had over. I would want all the homeowners to put the money in a joint escrow account and one hand it over when the works are completed.