79 TOWERS STILL DON’T MEET FIRE SAFETY STANDARDS
HIGH RISE TASK FORCE RELEASES FIGURE TWO YEARS AFTER GRENFELL DISASTER
MORE than two years on from the Grenfell Tower blaze, it has emerged 79 apartment blocks in Greater Manchester still don’t meet fire safety standards.
The figure was released by the Greater Manchester High Rise Task Force as the report of the first phase of the inquiry into the 2017 fire, which claimed 72 lives, was published.
Since Grenfell, every tower block in the Greater Manchester has been inspected, and replacement work carried out on a number of those found to have unsafe cladding.
But the task force said there were still 79 buildings in the region which ‘do not meet adequate standards of fire safety.’
And it’s understood at least 30 of those buildings are covered in the same style of aluminium composite material (ACM) cladding as Grenfell Tower.
In a statement, Greater Manchester’s Assistant Chief Fire Officer Tony Hunter said evacuation procedures in those blocks had been changed from the ‘stay put’ advice, which was heavily criticised in the Grenfell report, to ‘leave immediately’ if there are any concerns for safety. Mr Hunter said: “I want to be clear with Greater Manchester residents living in high-rise buildings that since the fire at Grenfell Tower we have already reviewed and made changes to our procedures to ensure that if necessary we are able to instigate an emergency evacuation in any high rise building.
“Since June 2017, our advice to residents has been to ‘stay safe,’ which means if they have any concerns about their safety or if there is any sign of smoke or fire in their home they should leave immediately.
“This reflects the concerns that residents had and continue to have about ‘stay put’ as a strategy for their buildings.” The report found ‘many more’ lives could have been saved if the advice to residents to stay inside their homes had been scrapped earlier.
It also concluded the cladding on the tower, which did not comply with building regulations, was the main reason for the fire’s spread.
Many tower block residents now face forking out huge sums to replace the unsafe cladding on their homes. As the M.E.N. reported in June, residents in the NV Buildings in Salford Quays face bills ranging from £12,000 to £34,000, depending on the size of their home.
Chair of the high rise task force, Salford city mayor Paul Dennett, said the current regulatory system was not ‘fit for purpose’ and called on the government to do more to assist tower block residents with repair costs.
He said: “This is an industrial crisis from which developers have profited and residents have to deal with the consequences.
“Residents have told us they can’t afford the works required and are struggling with increased costs for insurance and the costs of changing the evacuation strategy, many are unable to sell or re-mortgage and all live with the anxiety that a fire will occur in their building.” He added: “We will continue to do all we can to support residents.”
Alex Di Guiseppe, from campaign group Manchester Cladiators, said: “A lot of these buildings have stood for 20 years-plus but it’s only coming out now that they are unsafe. The first time people are learning about it is when they try to sell their flats but they can’t because mortgage lenders are now requesting fire safety certificates. People are literally and metaphorically trapped. Everyone deserves to live in a safe home.”