Fire chief reveals towers still built with major safety risks

London’s fire commissioner has warned that tall buildings are still being constructed with major safety risks.

Andy Roe told members of the London Assembly’s Fire Committee yesterday (14 January) that a lack of skills and resources meant guidance was not always being complied with.

He told the panel that an inspection conducted jointly with the Building Safety Regulator (BSR) under Gateway 3 of the regime brought in by the Building Safety Act had uncovered some major issues.

“[It was a] 49.85 metre residential building, designed before the London Plan came into force, and it had a single staircase, no evacuation lifts,” said Roe.

“A 17-floor building, when we went in and looked at it… you had a sprinkler system that… did not provide water above the 11th floor, multiple different keys to operate the firefighting lift so you had to go through levels of access… a dry riser when at 50 metres you would need a wet riser… and the applicant could not provide the details of the external wall make-up.

“It was about to go into occupation. We are all grappling with layers of problems – lack of competent inspection and lack of competent skills when constructing. This is the reality.”

Roe said occupation was prevented on this block and described the inspection as “an example where we worked well with the BSR”.

But he added: “If that had been assessed and inspected competently at an earlier point we wouldn’t have had to pick up the pieces, with a considerable amount of labour required from a limited resource.”

Roe said fire safety should begin far earlier in the development of a building.

“You have to see this system as an end-to-end process from the skills people bring into the environment to actually construct – so proper apprenticeships, national centres for excellence, and we welcome the community secretary’s announcement that there will be regional hubs focused on construction skills – you need people who can build safely and properly.

“You then need at every single stage of the inspection process… competent people. There is a big question for government laid out in the second phase of the Grenfell Tower Inquiry report around whether the construction industry and society have been best served by the privatisation of competent building inspection and what that has done to the number of local authority registered inspectors.”

Roe told the committee that of 1,329 London buildings designated for simultaneous evacuation – a type of emergency exit plan often used when stay-put orders cannot be relied on – just 179 had the controversial ACM cladding that featured on Grenfell Tower.

“There are 696 non-ACM clad; 315 with compartmentation issues; 88 with cavity barriers missing or inappropriate; seven with structural issues; 13 with ventilation not working; three with other faults or unknown issues; and 28 kind of volunteered themselves across multiple areas of failure,” he added.

“It shows you need competent people at the start of a construction process.”

In  a statement to Construction News, a spokesperson for the Mayor said: “The Mayor is determined to work with the government to do everything possible to ensure all Londoners have a safe home. The Mayor’s London Plan and the funding conditions in his affordable housing programme incorporate country-leading fire safety standards to help ensure the safety of new homes. City Hall will work closely with the government – not only to ensure all new buildings are built to the highest safety standards, but to accelerate the remediation of unsafe homes in the capital.”