Work to strip off the ‘potentially unsafe’ cladding on Trafford’s five social housing tower blocks has been completed – but its replacement won’t be finished until at least the autumn.

The ACM cladding, the same kind that was on the Grenfell Tower in London before a blaze killed at least 72 people in 2018, was first identified on the Old Trafford blocks and planned for removal two years ago, soon after the tragedy.

The hope had been to complete the work in 2018, but the problem cladding, which was found to cover 15pc of Grafton Court, Clifton Court, Princess Court, Pickford Court and Empress Court, was not removed on the advice of Greater Manchester fire chiefs.

Bosses notified the council not to remove the cladding, as exposing the polyethylene underneath the aluminium panels was deemed to be ‘more flammable’ and ‘more dangerous’ than leaving it covered over.

As a result the removal and replacement process on the blocks, which was due to be completed in February 2020, has been severely delayed.

While the removal process is was finally completed in December 2020, replacement work is ongoing and is set to continue until at least autumn 2021. Work has already begun on Princess Court.

Associated system works are also being started to ensure fire safety in the towers.

A spokesperson for Trafford Housing Trust, which manages the social housing blocks, gave a written update to the council this week, which said: “The current positive position has been achieved following agreement between all parties of a strategy to remediate all defective aspects of the system, and the installation of the new system (including all technical elements) which has been agreed by all relevant parties including the trust’s appointed façade remediation specialist and Trafford council’s building control, and which has been underwritten by manufacturers.

“The overcoming of this major technical challenge around the overall system and in particular the fire barrier designs has now facilitated acceleration of works and the Trust expects full completion of all recladding and system works by Autumn of this year (2021).”