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England’s housing ombudsman has called for a survey of properties to assess the presence of lead, after the impact of the toxic metal on human health was highlighted by a Financial Times investigation.
Richard Blakeway warned in an interview that lead was going “undetected” in housing and should be treated as seriously as the risks posed to humans from asbestos, mould and damp.
“We know it’s a hazard and what [the FT has] highlighted are the flaws in testing, so it would be sensible to do a pilot study to test and sample properties,” Blakeway told the Financial Times. “Lead has the same relevance of all the other hazards and it’s potentially being missed.”
Any survey would need to be instigated and conducted by the UK Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG).
The UK is home to some of the oldest housing in the world and many homes still have lead paint, which creates a poisonous dust that can be harmful if ingested as it flakes and rubs off walls, windows and door frames.
In 2004, lead was identified as a Class II risk that could result in “severe harm outcomes” by the UK’s housing health and safety rating system, a government assessment method for residential properties.
Before it was banned in 1992, lead paint in the UK may have contained up to 50 per cent lead by weight, “which is potentially capable of causing lead poisoning in a small child if they eat just a single flake”, according to government guidance published in October.
Lead pipes have been banned since the 1970s, but millions of homes are still fitted with the antiquated plumbing, which can contaminate water.
Experts have warned that a lack of routine testing of children and the housing stock means hundreds of thousands of children are probably suffering from the effects of lead poisoning.
Blakeway, who in his role investigates complaints from social housing tenants who rent their homes from local councils and housing associations, said better data was required to understand the scale of the problem in England.
“When we’ve looked at landlords’ policies and processes, hazards can be absent. Too often checks are only carried out after a health issue is reported,” he said.
“Certainly the experience we had with damp and mould is that there was a low awareness, or it wasn’t being taken seriously enough, so we were seeing few cases,” added Blakeway, head of the Housing Ombudsman Service, a public body sponsored by MHCLG, since 2019. “That’s changed because awareness has changed.”
In the US, the national American Housing Survey collects data on the state of housing and measures levels of hazards including lead. In 2021, the US government’s Childhood Lead Poisoning Prevention Program marked 30 years of work.
Experts in England have called for the renters reform bill, which is now going through parliament, to be amended to have lead hazards and risk assessments included in home buyers’ surveys.
Blakeway said there had been “a degree of complacency when it comes to responding to hazards and I’m surprised to the extent to which there is a disconnect between what the statute expects and then actual practice.
“I think the intent [of the law] is that lead should be part of a routine home survey but it’s not being done. It’s going undetected,” he added.
The housing ministry said it was that “clear landlords must ensure sure their homes are free from dangerous health and safety hazards, including dangerously high levels of lead”.
Referring to Awaab’s Law, named after two-year-old Awaab Ishak, who died in 2020 after prolonged exposure to mould in his social home, the ministry added: “Through Awaab’s Law we’re taking action to improve standards and end the scandal of unsafe homes, forcing landlords to address hazards in homes within fixed time periods or face legal action from tenants.”
