18 years of warnings and chances that were missed or ignored at deadly cost
‘A Commons committee concluded in 2000 that the authorities could not afford to wait before tackling the risk’
FIRE safety experts warned as long ago as 1999 that the cladding used on buildings such as Grenfell Tower posed a deadly threat, it has emerged.
The experts, from industry and the firefighters’ union, predicted that such cladding could help drive fire upwards to quickly engulf an entire building.
In a chilling premonition of the inferno 18 years later at Grenfell Tower, Glyn Evans, a Fire Brigades Union official, told MPs: “The problem with cladding is that it will, if it is able, spread fire and it will spread it vertically.
“If you get multi-storey buildings, you will get fire spread up the outside if the cladding will permit it.”
After hearing evidence from Mr Ev- ans and others, the Commons committee concluded in early 2000 that the authorities could not afford to wait before tackling the risk.
Its report stated: “We do not believe that it should take a serious fire in which many people are killed before all reasonable steps are taken towards minimising the risks.”
The report appears to have been one of several alarm bells rung over highrise buildings that went unheeded.
At the same time, there now is a growing conviction among experts that the cladding at Grenfell Tower helped to spread the fire.
Speaking to The Observer, Ronnie King, the former chief fire officer at Mid and West Wales Fire and Rescue Service, also revealed that his attempts to meet with former housing minister Gavin Barwell to discuss tightening fire safety rules had been turned down.
“They always seem to need a significant loss of life before things are changed,” he said.
Other experts told the environment committee in 1999 that “the fixtures which attach the cladding to the building may not withstand the fire, risking the detachment of the system from the building and endangering persons in and around the building, including firefighters” and that “plastic materials… used for the cladding… could melt and form burning droplets which again endanger people below”.
These fears were borne out with deadly consequences at Grenfell.
The select committee added in its report that all external cladding should either be “entirely non-combustible” or “proven through full-scale testing not to pose an unacceptable level of risk”. It also urged changes to the British Standards codes for the testing and use of cladding.
Since the Grenfell Tower disaster, the Government and Kensington and Chelsea council have insisted that all building regulations were up-to-date and complied with.
Rydon, which won the contract to refurbish the tower before subcontracting work, said it had met “all required building control, fire regulation and health and safety standards”.
The Grenfell Action Group said it seemed the contract had been “awarded to the cheapest bidder re- gardless of the quality of works and the consequences to residents”.
There is growing evidence that the rush by private firms to fulfil council contracts as cheaply as possible led to cladding being used that was less fireresistant than dearer materials.
Grenfell’s cladding was of powdercoated aluminium panels that are usually filled with flammable plastic.
On Friday, Worcester firm Omnis Exteriors said it had been asked to supply cheaper cladding that did not meet fire-retardant specifications. But for an extra £5,000, the building could have been encased in a material that may have resisted the fire for longer.
The cheaper version is banned on tall buildings in the US and Germany.
Last year, the Building Research Establishment, which works on fire investigations for the Government, warned of an “increase in the volume of potentially combustible materials being applied” to buildings.
The planning application for Grenfell’s refurbishment stated that fire barriers were due to be inserted between the cladding on each floor.
Warnings about the lack of water sprinklers in older high-rise buildings have also been repeatedly ignored.
In 2004, a report commissioned by John Prescott, then deputy prime minister, said water sprinklers were probably cost-effective for blocks of more than 11 storeys.
In 2006, Tony Blair’s government instructed that sprinklers be fitted to all new blocks higher than 30 metres (98ft) – or 11 storeys. But the regulations were not retrospective.
Alarm bells continued to ring after the coalition government came into power in May 2010.
After a fire in Southampton in 2010 that killed two firefighters, a coroner in 2013 recommended sprinklers be fitted in existing high-rises. Also in 2013, a similar recommendation was made, at the inquest of six people killed in a fire at Lakanal House, Camberwell, southeast London, in 2009.
But in 2014, Brandon Lewis, the Conservative then housing minister, refused to change regulations to force developers to fit sprinklers, saying it could discourage housebuilding.
‘Evidence is growing that the rush by firms to fulfil council contracts cheaply led to cladding being used that was less fire-resistant’