Backing for fire security system

Aberdeen tower block residents have backed calls for their buildings to be fitted with sprinkler systems as firefighters continued a tour to reassure residents.

The city council is considering installing the emergency systems into the bin areas of the city’s 59 high-rises as part of a review into fire safety following the Grenfell disaster in London.

Bin areas are targets for fireraisers and a blaze in Torry’s Grampian Court started near the bins hospitalised four people in 2015.

The local authority has already written to thousands of multistorey flat dwellers aiming to reassure them of the safety of the cladding on many of the towers.

It is of a different material to the exterior covering used on the Grenfell, blamed for the rapid spread of the blaze that killed around 80.

“I don’t see what harm sprinklers could do”

Drop-in information sessions are being held across the city this week where residents can ask questions of the fire brigade. At Grampian Court on Tuesday, residents heard that the fire department’s ladders only reach the ninth floor, although some tower blocks are up to 18 storeys high.

Yesterday Seaton’s Old Hay’s Court was the scene of the visit and residents unanimously backed the idea of sprinklers in the bin areas.

Kelly Park has lived on the eighth floor since 1988. She said: “I have always felt safe here but I don’t see what harm putting in sprinklers could do.”

Elsie Wood added: “I was a fire warden for 10 years and I think we need sprinklers, it would give people reassurance.”

Every London council was warned by the fire service that cladding on high-rise buildings could be dangerous just weeks before the Grenfell Tower tragedy.

In a letter sent to all 33 local authorities and housing providers in the capital in May, the London Fire Brigade (LFB) urged them to consider if panels could be flammable.

The safety advice came in the wake of a fire at Shepherd’s Court in Hammersmith, west London, in August 2016, where cladding was found to have aided its spread.

The letter said: “In the case of this fire, we believe such panels were a contributory factor to the external fire spread.”

Flammable cladding is suspected to have accelerated the scale of the west London blaze on June 14, which killed around 80 people.

In the correspondence, a “number of cases” were said to be found where fire protection on external facades “did not comply” with building regulations.

Suggestions were made in the letter that contractors might have believed wrongly that safety certificates for glazing also extended to cladding.

The borough of Kensington and Chelsea, where Grenfell Tower is located, would have received a copy of the letter, LFB said.