On Friday 31st October at 1pm, Cladding Matters returns with Gareth Wax in the chair, joined by Stephen Day and myself, Hamish McLay, along with our guest Matt Hodges-Long, co-founder of TrackMyRisks and long-time campaigner for building safety accountability.

This week’s focus follows shocking reports that a senior housing manager told staff to fake fire safety notices, creating a paper trail of protection that did not exist. The story has reignited public concern about whether the lessons of Grenfell have truly been learned, or whether some organisations still treat safety as a box-ticking exercise.

The case exposes something many in the industry already know: compliance on paper does not always equal safety in practice. A photo of a poster, or a file marked “complete”, might satisfy a system, yet it does nothing to protect the people living behind those doors. It is a chilling reminder that the culture of showing compliance is not the same as being compliant.

Matt Hodges-Long has long argued that transparency and traceability are the foundations of real safety. Every sign, inspection, and certificate should form part of a living, verifiable record, not a static document designed to tick a regulatory box. One wonders how many more such stories remain hidden in plain sight, masked by layers of process rather than proof.

For those of us who have followed building safety reform closely, this is not just another headline. It raises deeper questions about how well accountability is embedded at every level, from housing associations and managing agents to contractors and local authorities. When safety becomes a compliance task rather than a moral duty, the system is already failing.

As Matt, Gareth, Stephen and I will discuss, restoring public trust requires more than policy tweaks or new templates. It demands openness, independent oversight, and leadership that is willing to speak up when something is not right. True compliance is proven through behaviour, not bureaucracy.

Join us on Friday 31st October at 1pm for what promises to be a frank and grounded conversation about what happens when compliance culture goes wrong, and what needs to change before lives are put at risk again.

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