# The external wall systems crisis affecting 100,000s of flats in England (InsideHousing, 15 Oct 2020) * **Podcast episode: The crisis affecting hundreds of thousands of flats which could grind the housing market to a halt** * By Jack Simpson. Published in Inside Housing on 15 October 2020 * * **Summary**: * "In June 2017, a terrible fire tore through the cladding on Grenfell Tower, claiming 72 lives. After the blaze, it emerged that other blocks of flats were covered in similar combustible materials. * Three years on, the scale of the crisis has grown to involve numerous types of external wall systems, affecting thousands of buildings across the country. Progress in fixing them is proving painstakingly slow as arguments continue over who should be made to pay and government funding comes up short. * For the people living in these blocks, that means not only safety fears but potential financial ruin. Last December, the industry tried to come up with a solution in the form of the External Wall System 1 (EWS) process, but it is not working as the problems continue to spiral. * In this episode of The Housing Podcast – following the launch of new asks that make up our End Our Cladding Scandal campaign – we discuss the past, present and future of the EWS crisis with three people who are close to the issue." * **Keywords**: London, UK, council housing, cladding, renovations, heating and energy efficiency --- # Agent Instructions: Querying This Documentation If you need additional information that is not directly available in this page, you can query the documentation dynamically by asking a question. Perform an HTTP GET request on the current page URL with the `ask` query parameter: ``` GET https://housing-base.journalismarena.eu/social-and-public-housing/media-stories/the-external-wall-systems-crisis-affecting-100-000s-of-flats-in-uk-inside-housing-15-oct-2020.md?ask= ``` The question should be specific, self-contained, and written in natural language. The response will contain a direct answer to the question and relevant excerpts and sources from the documentation. Use this mechanism when the answer is not explicitly present in the current page, you need clarification or additional context, or you want to retrieve related documentation sections.