Wanted: Fire safety expert... for, ahem, Glasgow Art School
FOR anyone surveying the burnedout ruins, it’s a move that may seem rather late – Glasgow School of Art is to launch a fire safety inspection of its buildings.
The GSA is advertising for an independent expert to carry out fire risk assessments on its properties in Glasgow and the Highlands.
The advert pointedly informs potential candidates that smoking is prohibited at all GSA sites.
Fire ripped through the school in June, destroying millions of pounds of renovation work that had been carried out after the building – designed by Charles Rennie Mackintosh – was gutted by fire in 2014.
More than 450 tons of steel has been used to stabilise the east and north sides of the historic building. Local businesses are due to return to their premises in Garnethill, in Glasgow city centre, next month for the first time since they were evacuated after the June blaze.
Last week, the board announced: ‘The Glasgow School of Art is seeking to appoint a contractor to undertake a fire compliance report on GSA’s buildings.
‘The assessment will help identify risks that can be removed or reduced and to decide the nature and extent of the general fire precautions that need to be taken to protect people against the fire risks that remain.’ The 2014 fire in the 110-year-old building was caused when flammable gases from a foam canister used in a student project ignited.
The new tender document said contractors should note: ‘Smoking is prohibited on all GSA sites.’
It added: ‘Contractors engaged in hot-work, work in attics, boilerroom, switch rooms, ducts or other confined spaces must stop work one hour before the proposed daily finish time, and carry out fire checks of the areas in question and surrounding areas.’
Contractors must also give prior notice for ‘welding/grinding and use of flame cutting equipment’.
The survey will cover several buildings including the McLellan Galleries in Sauchiehall Street. The list includes five buildings more than a century old which may not meet safety requirements.
Last week, the GSA board was accused of a ‘cavalier’ approach to safety. A damning report by Garmeetings nethill residents and businesses to the Scottish parliament’s culture committee claimed that neither the director of the GSA, Professor Tom Inns, nor chairman Muriel Gray, had attended community since the fire. The submission alleges that the building was run by the GSA with a ‘culture of carelessness’, ‘where freedom of artistic expression trumped the rules, and by extension, safety’.
A spokesman for the Glasgow School of Art said: ‘There is nothing more important than the safety of our students, staff and neighbours. The GSA has a dedicated team of health and safety officers and fire officers, and does regular fire risk assessments.
‘There was an extremely rigorous analysis after the fire in 2014 and it is important that we do this again.
‘As part of this process we are commissioning external fire risk assessments.’
‘Identify risks that can be removed or reduced’