Cladding hero presented with MBE by the Prince of Wales

Nation.Cymru staff

A retired solicitor who spent years campaigning for justice for homeowners who bought defective flats has been presented with his MBE medal by the Prince of Wales in a ceremony at Windsor Castle.

Gareth Wilson, who together with his wife Sheila owned two apartments in the Celestia development in Cardiff Bay, fought tirelessly and without any payment on behalf of 457 fellow leaseholders who found themselves living in homes riddled with serious structural faults, including fire barriers described in official tests as very poor or completely non-existent.

The complex was built in 2007 and its faults were exposed after the Grenfell Tower tragedy 10 years later that saw 72 people die following a fire that spread through the 24-storey block because of defective cladding.

Mr Wilson has been compared by those he championed to the heroic Alan Bates of the Post Office scandal – a quiet, determined and completely selfless individual who refused to allow powerful developers to exhaust and outlast the people they had let down, and to ultimately help secure a landmark agreement in April 2024 that required Barratt Redrow to fund the major repairs that hundreds of families had waited years to see begin.

The campaign group called themselves the Welsh Gladiators, and their lead campaigner, Mark Thomas, said: “Without Gareth Wilson, none of what has been achieved would have been possible.”