Assurances over fire systems for highrises
WITH the recent graphic photos published in the ODT of the highrise residential building Grenfell Towers burning in London, and the inability of the local fire service to reach the upper floors with their ladders and snorkel equipment, I wondered if the Dunedin Fire Service would have the equipment to deal with a fire, should one occur, in the proposed 17storey hotel in Moray Pl? Brian Langley
Dunedin [New Zealand Fire Service region manager region 5, Dunedin, David Guard replies: ‘‘Any new accommodation building in New Zealand, such as the proposed Moray Pl hotel, is built under stringent rules to provide for the safety of its occupants and staff. New Zealand has among the strictest regulations in the world, including sprinkler systems, internal riser mains, smoke detection and dual means of safe escape for accommodation (high rise over eight floors), not to mention the building design and construction requirements.
‘‘If a fire was to occur, we expect the sprinkler system would either extinguish it fully, or at the very least contain it until firefighters arrived. Aerial appliances are limited in what they can do and are not our primary means of firefighting or evacuation. Instead, they are utilised for external observation and fire attack and rescues if necessary. Our firefighting tactics work in sync with the inbuilt systems described and are therefore conducted internally. I have full confidence in our resources in Dunedin to protect such a structure in the event of a fire.’’]
REGARDING the Grenfell Tower fire in London earlier this month. Those who died were abysmally failed by Government on several overlapping fronts. Firstly, successful Labour and Tory governments that bought into the mantra that deregulation of industry is inherently a good thing, blindly believing corporates are responsible enough to do the right thing. Certainly not the corporate that sold the flammable cladding, not the business that installed it.
Secondly, linked to this is the funding of political parties by corporates that have a consequent dominant voice in government over those agencies advocating for the rights and safety of the general public. This creates serious unmanaged conflicts of interest in governmental decisionmaking. Thirdly, devolving too much social housing responsibility to often incompetent local councils. Perhaps there will be direct political ramifications as well — time will tell.
I sincerely hope that New Zealand politicians are devoted to understanding the political and corporate causes of this tragedy and are heeding the ramifications.
Tony Merriman
Kew
[Abridged]
NZ politics
STRONG and stable. While Theresa May is now being ridiculed in the UK for this banal, full of nothing phrase, our own National Party seems to be still getting away with it? Strong and stable. All this tells us is that, while we have a housing crisis, a broken health service and rising poverty, somehow and somewhere a bunch of numbercrunching finance people and property investors are happy with the trickleup effect of growing inequality. Strong and stable. An economy for those at the top but a mess for everyone else beneath. Soundbite politics with repeated phrases and manipulated media is just a strong and stable mask for a broken society. The UK woke up. Theresa was found out. Now it is our turn to wake up. A change is needed.
Arran Wilkinson.
Dunedin