The chief executive of the housing association which ran the home in which two-year-old Awaab Ishak died after exposure to mould has been removed from his post.
Rochdale Boroughwide Housing said on Saturday afternoon that Gareth Swarbrick had been removed with “immediate effect”.
It comes after Swarbrick said on Thursday that he would not resign.
In a statement, Rochdale Boroughwide Housing said: “The board has taken the decision to remove Gareth Swarbrick from his post as chief executive of RBH with immediate effect. We will now work to appoint an external interim chief executive.
“Our original instincts were for Gareth to stay on to see the organisation through this difficult period and to make the necessary changes, but we all recognise that this is no longer tenable.”
“The coroner noted that RBH had made changes as a result of the tragic death of Awaab. Under new leadership RBH will continue to embed these changes and to continue to drive further improvements to our homes and to our communications with tenants.”
The statement added: “We are committed to sharing what we have learnt about the impact to health of damp, condensation and mould with the social housing sector, and to supporting sector wide changes. We will work with other agencies local and national and with central government in implementing the wider changes recommended to them by the coroner.
“As an organisation we are deeply sorry for the death of Awaab and devastated that it happened in one of our homes. We must ensure this can never happen again. His death needs to be a wake-up call for everyone in housing, social care and health.
“We support the coroner and housing ombudsman’s call for the government’s decent homes standard to be strengthened to include damp and mould.”
English
Arabic
Chinese (Simplified)
Dutch
French
German
Italian
Portuguese
Russian
Spanish