As the sixth anniversary of Grenfell draws near, blighted flat owner Paul Afshar asks developers to put people before profit in Yorkshire.

As we approach yet another anniversary of that tragic day (June 14), thousands of buildings across the country, including many in Leeds, Sheffield and Bradford are still not safe .

Four years ago I discovered my own flat had dangerous cladding. It ruined Christmas, put my life on hold and has caused sleepless nights ever since.

The Government estimates nearly 8,890 medium-rise buildings will need “life-critical” work to make them safe, on top of more than 3,500 high rises. Work has started on only one in five of those affected..

Leeds resident Emilie Boswell is still waiting for her home to be made safe. Initially faced with a cladding bill in excess of £100,000, she was accused by a government worker of “playing victim”. Emilie’s flat is still clad.

In our campaign to get justice for hard-working Yorkshire leasehold homeowners our mission has been clear: get the developers that caused this nightmare to pay attention and pay up.

This year they had to be dragged to the table to commit to cladding funding, upon pain of being “put out of business” by the Government .

There is, overall, an important lesson to be learned about building better, safer homes and we hope political will and the power of the public purse is a force even developers with deep pockets cannot ignore.

Meanwhile, across the county, developers vying for large-scale projects are being met with opposition from communities in small towns and villages who are asking simply for the right infrastructure and smaller plots.

At the heart of these challenges is one key question: have developers learned the lessons of the past six years, which is that putting people before profit is the only way to win back our trust?

Our cladding campaign has taught us that the Government can, if they want, turn off the lucrative tap of public investment when developers fail to live up to their responsibilities.

When developers complain that more affordable homes in new developments will harm the “economic viability” of the scheme, we can tell them to build more. When new-builds are rushed out and found not to be fit for purpose, we can say no.

When developers sell on the feudal system of leasehold where buying a home means you don’t own the land on which it’s built, we can abolish it.

The only thing standing in our way is the political will and imagination to get developers to build in the public interest. Without it, we face more miserable years of unfit, unaffordable housing.