The leader of the national firefighter union has slammed a housing association for progressing with plans to build a near-18-metre-high block of flats with a single staircase.
The general secretary of the Fire Brigade Union (FBU) said the plan to build a 17.7 metre site in Penge with a single staircase “is shameful and unethical”.
Though the project does technically meet building safety requirements, Steve Wright said it was “clear that lessons from the Grenfell Tower fire have still not been learned nearly eight years on”.
He added the plans at Blenheim Square – put forward by Clarion Housing Association and the Hadley Property Group – showed “stronger regulation and enforcement [is needed to] ensure that people’s lives are put before developers’ profits”.
The two developers received planning permission from Bromley Council last year after they adjusted the height of the block to 17.7 metres to comply with safety regulations, as first reported by MyLondon.
The Building Safety Act (BSA) – which came into force in 2022 – requires any blocks more than 18 metres in height, or with more than seven storeys, to have two staircases. The BSA was part of a response to the Grenfell Tower tragedy in 2017, when fire spread rapidly up the high rise tower, killing 72 residents.
Three Bromley councillors also slammed the decision to greenlight the programme, warning that the project risks “serious harm” to the local community.
“We think Penge residents have been punished, with a development which literally sticks a middle finger up to the Penge community,” councillors Kathy Bance, Simon Jeal and Kevin Kennedy-Brooks said in a joint statement.
The block – referred to as Block A in the planning documentation – is part of a project to demolish Penge’s Blenheim Shopping Centre and replace it with up to 230 homes across four buildings of between three and 18 storeys. The development will also include up to 2,828 square metres of commercial space and a new park.
Construction News asked Clarion whether a contractor had been appointed to the scheme, but had not heard back at the time of publication. According to construction data provider Glenigan, the project is still in the pre-tender stage.
The FBU’s comments also echo warnings made by the London Fire Brigade (LFB) over the project’s “ethics” after it got the go-ahead last February.
In a strongly worded letter to the London Borough of Bromley’s principal planner Agnieszka Nowak-John, LFB representatives warned that the updated design “may have implications on those responsible for demonstrating the ongoing safety in the building”.
“We therefore do not see this as deferring to the spirit of the guidance used and doesn’t ethically justify this decision,” they added in the letter.
The developers did add a second staircase to blocks B and D, but not to block A, according to the letter by the LFB.
A spokesperson for Clarion and Hadley said that the scheme complied fully with the latest building regulations and fire safety standards. They added that had altered their designs for the scheme twice to meet building regulations – firstly when the government introduced consultation guidelines for buildings of over 30 metres in height, and then when the rules were introduced for buildings of over 18 metres.
“We always ensure compliance with the highest standards,” they added.
They also said the project would deliver a vibrant new town square in Penge and deliver more affordable homes in Bromley, which had been approved in the last two years combined.
CN approached Bromley Council for comment.
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Joshua Stein