Government faces £600m bill after fire checks at flats
Over-loaded fire services say they cannot meet deadline on NHS buildings after Grenfell disaster
THE Government faces an estimated bill of more than £600million for replacing flammable cladding on housing blocks after the Grenfell Tower disaster.
Sixty blocks have failed cladding fire safety checks, every one tested so far, with another 540 still to be looked at.
Industry experts told the Telegraph the cost of replacing the cladding on each block would top £1 million and costs would spiral far higher if residents had to be evacuated during building work.
Plans to test every hospital in the wake of the fire that is presumed to have killed at least 79 people were in chaos after fire chiefs told hospital leaders they did not have the resources to carry out the inspections. NHS watchdogs had instructed every hospital to arrange safety checks by local fire services by the end of the weekend, but senior officers from the country’s nine fire services said they were not consulted and could not meet the request.
Camden council admitted last night that around one in five households it was trying to evacuate from four blocks in north London were refusing to leave.
The council said around 200 people were staying put despite being advised “in the strongest possible terms” to move into alternative accommodation because of safety concerns.
The London borough said it had already put aside £500,000 to pay for hotel bills for residents while safety work is carried out on the blocks.
Ben Farmer, Laura Donnelly
Peter Walker
PLANS to test every hospital for fire safety in the wake of the Grenfell Tower disaster were last night in chaos after fire chiefs told hospital leaders they did not have time to carry out the inspections.
NHS watchdogs had instructed every hospital to arrange safety checks by local fire services by the end of the weekend, but senior officers from the country’s nine fire services said they were not consulted and could not meet the request.
One NHS trust chief executive told Health Service Journal there was “chaos” in the capital, with London Fire Brigade refusing to carry out checks because of the volume of work it was already undertaking in the wake of the Grenfell disaster.
Another NHS chief executive said the unprecedented orders – telling trusts to arrange checks of every inpatient faculty within 36 hours – had fallen into NHS spam filters, leaving many hospital managers unaware of the urgent demands.
A trust chief executive in the east of England said local fire services had heard nothing about the orders until hospitals began contacting them, and were already inundated with safety checks on residential blocks.
The confusion came as it was disclosed the Government faces a bill as high as £600million to replace flammable cladding on housing blocks after the Grenfell Tower disaster.
Sixty tower blocks around the country have so far failed fire safety tests in the wake of the June 15 blaze that killed at least 79 people.
A total of 600 blocks have been singled out for testing by the Government and so far there has been a 100 per cent failure rate.
Industry sources told The Telegraph that safety work to replace the cladding was likely to cost at least £1million per block.
The cost could be far higher if blocks are evacuated and residents left homeless. Camden council revealed it had already paid out £500,000 in hotel accommodation after deciding to evacuate four blocks fitted with similar cladding to Grenfell Tower. Another £100,000 has been paid for food and essential items.
Simon Taylor, director of Northern Heights, based in Yorkshire, which has fitted cladding to 25 council tower blocks, said: “You can work on £1million each. It’s not just the cladding, but the scaffolding, it’s about access, taking it down, remaking it, redesigning and putting it back again.”
The cost could rise because of insurance worries after the Grenfell Tower fire. Stephen Ledbetter, former director of the Centre for Window and Cladding Technology, estimated it would cost roughly £1.2million to re-clad a tower block the size of Grenfell. The Government said high-rise buildings in 25 local authorities across the country have failed cladding fire-safety tests.
Sajid Javid, communities secretary, had earlier revealed all of the buildings that had so far submitted cladding samples had failed combustibility tests.
The Department for Communities and Local Government said Doncaster, Norwich, Stockton-on-tees and Sunderland all had buildings that failed tests, while Manchester, Plymouth and Portsmouth have already been named.
Islington, Lambeth and Wandsworth joined Barnet, Brent, Camden and Hounslow are on the list of London boroughs, while 11 other areas are yet to be named. A social housing provider in Liverpool announced it has decided after tests to remove cladding from two of its high-rise blocks as a precaution.
One Vision Housing said results showed “certain elements of the cladding” on Cygnet House and Wren House in Bootle, “while meeting building regulations, does not meet the latest test criteria”.
Work has already begun to remove cladding on nine high-rise blocks in Pendleton, Salford. Residents were told that aluminium composite cladding would be removed in advance of government combustibility test results.
The laboratory carrying out the tests said on Friday it was able to check 100 samples a day, but by last night only 60 had been submitted and tested.
Meanwhile, emails sent to and from the US manufacturer of the cladding used on Grenfell Tower raised questions over why the company supplied combustible material, despite warning such panels were a fire risk for tall buildings.
According to the 2014 emails seen by Reuters news agency, firms bidding to refurbish the tower asked about samples of five types of Reynobond aluminium-covered panels, each one apparently using a core only recommended for lower buildings. A 2016 brochure from Arconic, a US company with factories around the world, described how panels with a non-combustible core should be used for buildings above 30 metres (98ft) in height. Grenfell Tower is more than 60 metres (197ft) tall.
The brochure also warned that cladding can be a fire risk. It said: “As soon as the building is higher than the fire fighters’ ladders, it has to be conceived with an incombustible material.”
A spokesman declined to say if the firm had known how tall Grenfell Tower was. A statement said: “While we publish general usage guidelines, regulations and codes vary by country and need to be determined by the local building code experts.”
‘You can work on £1 million each. It’s not just the cladding, but the scaffolding, it’s about access, taking it down, remaking it, redesigning and putting it back again’