The Daily Telegraph

Hospitals feared to be at risk of inferno

Public buildings tested after Grenfell tragedy as Camden council evacuates 800 homes

- By Gordon Rayner and Hayley Dixon

HOSPITAL buildings are being subjected to urgent fire safety tests over fears some may be covered in flammable cladding, it emerged last night.

Schools, universiti­es, offices and all other public buildings are also being checked for panels that may be a fire risk, Downing Street said.

Last night around 800 households in five tower blocks on the Chalcots estate in Camden, north London, were evacuated due to concerns over cladding.

Camden council’s leader Georgia Gould said the buildings would be evacuated to allow “urgent fire safety works” to take place.

Ms Gould said: “Grenfell changes everything. I don’t believe we can take any risks with our residents’ safety.

“I know it’s a scary time but we will make sure they are safe. We are absolutely clear that we will make sure that everybody on those blocks has somewhere to stay tonight.”

A total of 14 high-rise buildings with cladding in nine council areas have now failed fire safety tests. Evacuation­s will be ordered of any that are declared unsafe by fire brigade inspectors.

The Metropolit­an Police yesterday said it was considerin­g manslaught­er charges after disclosing that the cladding and insulation on the outside of Grenfell Tower failed fire safety tests.

It also emerged that the Grenfell blaze was started when a Hotpoint fridge-freezer caught fire. Owners of the same model, of which 64,000 were sold, have been told to contact the company as the Government ordered tests to be carried out on similar models.

Tests on cladding samples from 600 tower blocks in England are being carried out on the orders of the Department for Communitie­s and Local Government.

On Monday, Simon Corben, director of estates and facilities for NHS Improvemen­t, wrote to all NHS trusts ordering them to “urgently” check buildings. The letter, published by the Health Service Journal, told staff to find out what type of cladding had been used, whether the buildings were used for in-patients, which contractor carried out the work and whether a risk assessment had been carried out in the past year.

Research by Tussell, a database of Government tenders and contracts, has discovered that £561million of taxpayers’ money has been spent on public sector contracts that contain references to cladding since 2014. They include schools, universiti­es and hospitals. However, not all of the contracts will have involved fitting cladding to the outside of buildings.

A Department of Health spokesman confirmed that it was working with the Building Research Establishm­ent in London, which is carrying out 100 tests per day on cladding samples. The Department for Education said it was “contacting all bodies responsibl­e for

safety in schools instructin­g them to carry out checks to identify any buildings which may require further investigat­ion”.

The search for bodies in the wreckage of Grenfell Tower, in which 79 people are thought to have died, could take until the end of the year, police said, such is the difficulty involved in finding human remains among the ashes.

Detectives have already begun seizing documents as part of a criminal investigat­ion, confirmed Detective Superinten­dent Fiona Mccormack, who is leading the investigat­ion.

They will look at the refurbishm­ent, carried out by the constructi­on firm Rydon with the cladding subcontrac­ted to Harley Curtainwal­l Ltd, as well as the way that the building was managed by Kensington and Chelsea Tenant Management Organisati­on on behalf of Kensington and Chelsea council. As well as the materials used, police are examining the design and the way that it was installed.

When asked if the bosses of Rydon and Harley had been questioned, she said: “We are currently liaising with a large number of companies that have been involved in the refurbishm­ent and we are in the process of seizing material from a number of those companies.”

Research by Tussell shows that Rydon has been awarded £429 million of public sector contracts over the past three years, though most would not have involved cladding, which Rydon subcontrac­ted to another firm.

The families of every person killed in the Grenfell fire will receive a minimum £20,000 from public donations to appeals, the Charity Commission said yesterday. It is in addition to £5,500 in Government funds for each family that lived in the block.

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