Dangerous, Grenfell-style cladding was fitted to parts of the High Street flats building that caught fire last week, the Observer can reveal.

Almost 300 people had to be evacuated from the Mosaic Apartments building on High Street just after midnight last Thursday, August 22, after a fire broke out at a top floor flat.

Now building owner Wallace Estates has admitted that flammable cladding was attached to ‘an isolated area’ of the building – but denies that it is responsible for fire safety defects.

It comes after the Observer received an anonymous tip-off that the building was fitted with flammable cladding similar to that on Grenfell Tower.

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Wallace Estates told the Observer: “The building has lots of different external wall types, some but not all need remediating but we’re working with experts and the developer to ensure the safety of the building.”

“Remediation of the cladding system has been under review with the original developer, and this was a project the freeholder was and is working on remediating.”

An anonymous caller to the Observer claimed that Mosaic Apartments was fitted type three aluminium composite cladding.

The same type of flammable cladding was responsible for the rapid spread of the fire that engulfed Grenfell Tower in west London in 2017, killing 72 people.

It has since been banned on buildings over 18 metres tall, with owners told to remove it. But removal work on some buildings has been delayed amid arguments over who is responsible for paying and carrying out the work.

A spokesperson for Wallace Estates confirmed that flammable ACM Cassette panels were attached to ‘an isolated area’ of the building.

The spokesperson also said leaseholders had been made aware, and that the building had a fire safety assessment that considered the panels to be a ‘tolerable risk’.

The spokesperson said work to replace the cladding had not begun – pinning the responsibility on the building’s original developers. They said the firm is ‘working to ensure the original developer removes it as soon as possible’.

They added Wallace Estates is not responsible ‘for the fire safety defects at Mosaic Apartments’.

Wallace Estates was criticised by the then-Conservative government in February this year for ‘consistently failing’ to fix building safety defects.

It came after the previous government won took legal action to force Wallace Estates to remove flammable material from buildings it owned in Croydon and Manchester.

Wallace Estates’ spokesperson said the firm ‘does not accept’ that it had consistently failed to fix safety defects – and insisted that the developer was responsible for removing the cladding.

But Giles Grover of the End Our Cladding Scandal campaign said building owners should take responsibility.

He told the Observer: “Whilst the Government and industry are directly to blame for causing the building safety crisis, the law now says that building owners with a net wealth of over £2m per relevant building should pay.

“Wallace has confirmed that it meets the net wealth threshold so, as far as we are concerned, Wallace should pay to fix all their buildings.”