Aileen Hammond was a councillor in Belsize

• YOU are right to celebrate the life of Aileen Hammond and her career as a councillor, (Rebel without a faction who did what felt right to save our libraries, February 25).

I was not part of the libraries campaign but I was very much involved in the issue of contracting housing capital works by partnering, and she was too.

In July 1998 Sir John Egan reported on “Rethinking Construction” to the then deputy prime minister and head of housing and local government. His report recommended pilots of new ways of building.

Camden naturally volunteered to start a pilot of capital works and repairs in 1999. The pilots in turn led to adoption of the partnering model with the ultimate results seen at the Grenfell Tower, and at Chalcots as you have reported.

It soon became clear there were considerable problems with the Camden partnering pilot, notably at a house in Belsize Grove and so in Aileen’s ward.

Aileen actively took up the issue with officers on behalf of her constituents. She wrote a series of perceptive letters about the partnering concept and how it was inherently likely to fail.

The only other councillor to raise similar objections was Anne Swain who did so in the housing committee to some derision. They were both courageous to do what they did.

The postscript has to be that the Leasehold Knowledge Partnership reported what Sir John Egan told the all-party parliamentary group on leasehold and commonhold reform in 2019.

I quote: “The social sector often quotes ‘Egan Principles’ which supposedly recommend the use of QLTAs [Qualifying Long-Term Agreements, current terminology for partnering].

“According to Sir John Egan who wrote the Egan Report on improving construction techniques in the late 1990s his ‘Egan Principles’ simply do not exist. He never spoke to the social sector and never intended his report to be used for buildings maintenance”.

So we should honour Aileen Hammond and Anne Swain. And note that Camden’s current capital framework differs from the one they challenged.

PETER WRIGHT, WC1