Desperate hunt for the other tower block traps
urgent safety checks on tower blocks across Britain were ordered last night amid fears thousands of families are living in death traps. Hundreds of high-rises built in the 1970s have been spruced up with external cladding.
Housing minister Alok Sharma yesterday said it was an ‘emergency priority’ to carry out assessments after panels used on grenfell tower were blamed for turning it into a tinderbox. But last night there was utter confusion as government sources confessed they have no idea how many homes were affected.
Many local councils said they had not been asked to act yet.
More than 515,000 flats in england are classed as being in high-rise developments – and some 4,000 tower blocks lack ‘fire suppressing measures’.
Witnesses to the grenfell disaster said the cladding – comprising flammable plastic foam slabs sandwiched between thin aluminium panels with a gap in between – acted as a fatal conduit for the flames to leap from one storey to another as the building went up ‘like a matchstick’.
the Fire Brigades union said crews were flabbergasted by how the blaze spread so rapidly it engulfed the 24storey block in 15 minutes.
Arnold tarling, of the Association of Specialist Fire Protection, said yesterday: ‘the cladding looks lovely, it’s cheap, complies with regulations and gives the building a high environmental rating. But it’s a silent killer.
‘When this block was built, it complied with the old fire regulations. Had it been left alone, it would never have burned like this.’
roy Wilsher, chairman of the national fire chiefs council, urged a re-think on refurbishments involving cladding panels, which have also been blamed for tower fires in Dubai, Australia and the uS.
Hurley Facades, the firm which supplied the grenfell panels,similar workhas alsoon other carried blocks. out Four 23-storey high-rises in Camden, north London, were refurbished with the cladding at a cost of £16million, as was Ferrier Point, a 23- storey block with 115 flats in newham, east London, in 2015. Six towers in Westminster were given rainproof cladding the same year in a contract worth £3.5million, as was the 13-storey Merit House in Barnet, north London.
Castlemaine tower, a 23storey block in Battersea, South London, was clad and refurbished by the firm in 2014, as was Clements Court in Hounslow, West London. Local authorities in Camden, newham, Croydon and redbridge were among those London boroughs to launch their own urgent reviews yesterday. Asked how many homes were affected nationwide, a government spokesman said: ‘We don’t know yet. this will be part of the review.’
Labour housing spokesman John Healey said: ‘no fire in a single flat should have led to such devastation. no one should sleep in fear in a tower block. And no minister should rest until all the questions have been answered.’
MPs warned 20 years ago of the potential fire risks in cladding, but the panels have proved irresistible to cashstrapped councils.
Kensington council wrote in a planning document – which barely mentioned fire safety – about ‘improving the appearance’ of grenfell tower.
Architect and fire expert Sam Webb, who advises Parliament on housing safety, added: ‘this building was like a bus full of people without any brakes.’ the chairman of the Local government Association, Lord Porter, said it was working closely with the government and fire chiefs.
One of the original architects of grenfell tower, which was built in 1974, told the BBC: ‘We built a concrete building and concrete simply doesn’t burn like that.’ Yesterday local authorities across Britain insisted cladding on their high-rise blocks all complied with regulations.
Bristol City Council, which is revamping 45 blocks, said it did ‘not believe that there is any cause for concern’.
Authorities in Wolverhampton, Hull, Sheffield and Manchester are also carrying out checks on the specifications of new cladding.
‘Like a bus with no brakes’