All 75
Ok that’s not good:
All 75 high-rises in Britain that have been tested for fire safety since the Grenfell Tower tragedy have failed, a leading government official said on Monday, raising concerns that even more buildings may have to be evacuated while emergency repairs are undertaken.
Addressing the House of Commons, Sajid Javid, the minister for communities and local government, said all 75 towers in Britain whose cladding had so far been tested for combustibility had failed. He said hospitals and schools would also be tested to ensure they had not been built with cladding that could easily catch fire.
It’s pretty remarkable. Someone in charge chose the slightly cheaper but more combustible cladding every single time. It’s almost as if the ruling class just really does not give a fuck about the lower orders. So they can’t get health insurance, so their apartment block goes up like a torch one midnight, who cares? The rich still have their SUVs and their houses in Aspen.
The United States, a world leader in fire safety standards, forbids the application of the sort of highly flammable materials used on Grenfell Tower. But under the regulatory system in force in Britain, builders and property owners faced less strict restrictions and may have wrapped hundreds of buildings in the potentially risky cladding.
John McDonnell, the opposition Labour Party’s spokesman on economic issues, said those killed in Grenfell Tower had been “murdered” by “political decisions” made over recent decades.
Wow, for once something at which we’re not shamefully worse than all other developed nations.
As many across the political spectrum have criticized the regulatory shortcomings that may have led to the Grenfell fire, members of the insurance industry have said they warned the government about the risks of flammable cladding just a month before it happened.
Malcolm Tarling, a spokesman for the Association of British Insurers, said the industry was closely watching the response to the fire. “We have been calling for the U.K. government to review fire regulations since 2009,” he said. “As recently as May, we made a submission to the government which referenced the need to consider the fire risk posed by combustible cladding.”
In its submission to the government, the association warned that “external cladding made from combustible material can often cause significant fire spread upward and between buildings, which is a particular concern for areas of high building density.”
And they were right.
Much as I dislike the insurance industry, it has to be noted that they follow statistical and scientific evidence with almost religious zeal.
While they will exclude or drop a risk group like nuclear waste if they get the chance, where they can’t, they push hard for standards that will reduce their losses. That often translates coincidentally into better safety for people.
you don’t see the insurance industry pushing for worse fire safety standards or crappy vehicle safety. Funnily enough, you don’t see them denying climate change and promoting looser development standards on flood prone shore lines either.
That is now; but Mr. Anti-regulations is sure to hate regulations that require him to make all his buildings safe, perhaps at a few dollars expense for him, so I’m not sure we can expect it much longer.
Good point.
#2
In the US, many fire and electrical organizations heavily employ conservative leaning people. They are unlikely to change their policies under the current administration.
If by design or dumb luck US is very likely going to continue good engineering and administrative regulations for electrical and fire.
This is slightly misleading.
The fact the cladding isn’t banned is irrelevant. It’s not going to get anyone off the hook. The way (according to my senior H&S officer friend) the law works is that it is incumbent on the construction company to make sure they are using suitable material. The law doesn’t provide minimum guidelines, it asks, “Was this a reasonable decision for a construction company to have made?” If the answer (as considered by a judge – whom are not elected in the UK) is, “No,” then it doesn’t matter which building standards the company points to. The company is expected, by law, to have a civil engineer, or similar, who knows the appropriate use of the materials they choose.
In this case, the person who chose to use this cladding in this way is guilty of a criminal offence. It’s irrelevant that the cladding is legal – it’s that person’s business, as a professional, to know the attributes and suitability of the cladding he chose. He is unable to hide behind anything. It was his responsibility to be absolutely certain this stuff was safe.
What that person (or people) have done is, in fact, the legal equivalent of picking a cladding that has been banned – presumably for financial reasons. It’s no less criminal because the UK doesn’t ban individual materials. This unknown person cannot say he didn’t understand or didn’t know this fire would be the result: it’s his legal responsibility, to understand and to know, if he’s in the position of making decisons like this.
This is why very few materials are outright banned in the UK. It’s because we lay the burden of knowing their subject – and there are many, many building standards and regulations to guide someone in this position, on the person planning and ordering the use of this material.
The advantage of this way of regulating is that new materials can be used as soon as they have a weight of research behind them, rather than construction engineers having to wait for legal rulings on them. In theory it places responsibility directly at the decision making point. In this case, the guy(s) who should have been careful and professional have abrogated their responsibilities. They’ve chosen – and their professional knowledge and experience means this must have been done knowingly – to put people at risk, for whatever financial gain there was. They will be prosecuted in exactly the same manner as someone in their position who used an illegal material.
Having said all that, there’s evidently a systemic problem here. How many companies were involved in placing cladding on all these blocks? One? Or a few under an umbrella organisation? The fact they’re all council accommodation suggests it’s one, or a very few, companies who have won contracts with local authorities. There’s probably a list of acceptable companies to use, circulated by central government. And, knowing government purchasing and culture, they will be the ones who submitted rock-bottom bids. Governments have never learned the domestic economy rule of always choosing a mid range quote – the most expensive ones rip you off, the cheapest ones do shoddy work.
Many construction companies in the UK, when quoting for government contracts, put in artificially deflated bids, in the sure knowledge they can’t do what they promised in the time quoted, or for the price agreed. They get part way through the work and it becomes clear that it’s going to significantly overrun both budget and schedule. The company is fined for defaulting on their agreement but they don’t care, because paying those defaulting fines was costed into the original budget – the one they didn’t show the customer.
So, what’s the response needed? I strongly suspect this cladding will be banned outright, not because that will change anything significantly (remember, using it in this situation was unreasonable, therefore illegal anyway). It will satisfy the public and the papers. It’s an easy, politically popular gesture which utterly ignores that there are many, many other products that would be just as dangerous used in this, or other situations. A seriously punitive jail sentence for the engineer(s) who chose that cladding is appropriate and will, I’m sure, happen. But how do we stop this happening again? If enlightened self-interest (do your job right or go to jail…) doesn’t keep people on the straight and narrow, how do we police them? We can demand a professional fire service safety check of all new building work. Even just on local authority buildings that would be a massive job. And it lets private landlords entirely off the hook. And, well, the fire service and the H&S departments in Local Authorities are two areas that are being eaten away at. Safety is expensive. (My senior H&S Officer friend recently had his hours cut from full time to three days a week. Yes, of course he’s expected to do the same job, to the same standard in the reduced time… so he’s planning on bailing and being a private consultant).
The last few governments have chipped away at the Police, the NHS and the Fire Service, and cut local authority budgets so they have to economise. Demanding a greater role from the Fire Service – who are responsible for all checks into fire related safety – means demanding more from an organisation that is already at full stretch. Still, there’s no way central government will ever admit their policies may have led to both the cost cutting and lack of oversight that has created the conditions where this situation happens.