Desperate search for other tower block traps
MINISTERS have launched an ‘emergency’ operation to check tower blocks across Britain amid fears thousands of families are living in death traps.
Hundreds of high-rise homes have been spruced up with external cladding panels to smarten up their 1960s and 1970s facades.
After the cladding on Grenfell Tower was blamed for turning it into a tinderbox, Westminster has ordered ‘emergency’ safety checks and the Scottish Government has started an urgent review of fire safety regulations in highrise buildings.
But last night there was utter confusion as UK Government sources confessed they had no idea how many homes were affected, leaving concerned families in limbo.
Local councils said they had not been asked to do anything yet.
More than 515,000 flats in England and 60,000 in Scotland are classed as being in high-rise developments – and it is believed thousands in the UK lack ‘fire suppressing measures’.
Witnesses to the Grenfell disaster said the cladding – comprised of flammable plastic foam slabs attached to thin panels of aluminium with an air gap in between – acted as a fatal conduit for the flames.
Arnold Tarling, of the Association of Specialist Fire Protection, said: ‘The cladding looks lovely, it’s cheap, complies with regulations and gives the building a high environmental rating. But it’s a silent killer.
‘When this block was built, it complied with the old fire regulations. Had it been left alone, it would never have burned like this.’
Roy Wilsher, of the National Fire Chiefs Council, urged a rethink on the use of cladding panels, which have also been blamed for fires in Dubai, Australia and the United States. The firm which supplied the Grenfell panels, Hurley Facades, has also carried out similar work on other blocks in London. Asked how many homes were affected nationwide, a Government spokesman said: ‘We don’t know yet. This will be part of the review.’
In Scotland, a ministerial working group has been set up by Communities Secretary Angela Constance.
A Scottish Government spokesman said: ‘Housing Minister Kevin Stewart has written to all councils and Registered Social Landlords asking them to urgently collate information on their high rise buildings and what, if any, remedial works have been done to them.’
Council chiefs and social landlords in Glasgow, Edinburgh, Dundee and Aberdeen insisted that none of the tower blocks under their control had the same Celotex RS500 cladding as Grenfell Tower.
Local authorities said that the materials they use meet the ‘highest safety standards’ and that regular inspections are carried out.
Rules on materials used to manufacture cladding were tightened almost 20 years ago after a fire in a tower block killed a Scots pensioner.
William Linton died when a fire broke out in a 14-storey council block in Irvine, Ayrshire, in June 1999.
John Healey, Labour’s Westminster shadow housing minister, said: ‘No fire in a single flat should have led to such devastation. No one should sleep in fear in a tower block. And no minister should rest until all the questions have been answered.’
MPs warned 20 years ago that cladding posed a potential fire risk but the panels have proved irresistible to cash-strapped councils looking to transform aging tower blocks on the cheap.
Architect and fire expert Sam Webb said basic safety regulations were often ignored and described the state of Britain’s tower blocks as a ‘disaster waiting to happen’.
Experts pointed out that even the Government’s highest rating of fire-resistance, ‘Class 0’, only demands that materials should be of ‘limited combustibility’. Successive housing ministers have ignored demands from experts to tighten the standard.
‘Cladding is a silent killer’ ‘No one should sleep in fear’