黑洞社区

The details in Dr Barbara Lane鈥檚 expert report of what went wrong at Grenfell Tower are shocking and a sad indictment on the state of some elements of the construction industry.

The report is a catalogue of failures: a fire in a domestic appliance 鈥� not an unusual occurrence 鈥� spreads to the external cladding through flammable elements around the windows and up and along the building because of the flammable nature of the external cladding panels and a failure to fit cavity barriers correctly.

Front doors to individual flats failed to perform as claimed, allowing smoke and fire to pour out into the lobbies. The smoke ventilation system didn鈥檛 comply with the regulations and failed to operate as intended, allowing the stairwells to fill with hot smoke. Water couldn鈥檛 be got to the top of the building using the risers because these were inadequate. And to cap it all, the fire brigade continued to tell residents to stay put even after the fire had spread up the exterior to the top of the building.

There is a strong case that those working on multiple-occupancy tall buildings and other buildings should have the competence to make the right decisions to ensure these are safe

Lane goes much further and examines the fire performance of the different elements used in the building, the product testing regime, the adequacy of the guidance in Part B of the 黑洞社区 Regulations and the competency of those involved in designing, building and checking the refurbishment works at Grenfell Tower. Nothing and no one comes out of this well.

Lane questions the adequacy of BS 8414, the standard used for full-scale testing of cladding systems, saying the test panels should include openings such as windows to better replicate real world conditions as called for by the insurance industry.

Not that this matters much, because Lane couldn鈥檛 find any evidence that a cladding system fitted with polyethylene-cored aluminium panels had ever been tested to this standard, inadequate or not. It wouldn鈥檛 have the remotest chance of passing the test as polyethylene is highly flammable. It starts melting at 120潞C and would drip out from between the aluminium. At higher temperatures the thin aluminium skins would simply peel away leaving sheets of polythene without any protection.

Nor could she find any evidence that there was 鈥渁ny understanding by any member of the design team or construction team, nor by the approving authority that the cladding system was either combustible or in breach of building regulations鈥�.

The guidance in the regulations comes in for stick too, giving further credence to those experts who claim that ambiguities in Part B have resulted in the widespread fitment of combustible polyethlene-cored aluminium [ACM] panels to tall buildings. Lane said the guidance in Part B was contradictory and needed urgent change. Guidance on the fire performance standards of external cladding should be changed to allow only non-combustible materials. The government鈥檚 interpretation, as stated after the Grenfell fire, that 鈥渇iller materials鈥�, defined as of limited combustibility, should include the core of external cladding panels, was dismissed by Lane who said there was no technical evidence anywhere that backed this up.

It will be for the lawyers to argue as to whether the government has been spared hugely expensive legal action from those who may have fitted ACM panels on the back of this flawed guidance, by Lane鈥檚 conclusion that the system at Grenfell, and others like it, would fail the functional requirement of Part B. This states that 鈥渢he external wall of the building shall adequately resist the spread of fire鈥�. In other words, it is arguable that it was the design and construction team鈥檚 responsibility to ensure that any cladding system on this external wall would have resisted the spread of fire, even if the guidance wasn鈥檛 clear about the fire performance of external cladding panels. 

These conclusions take us neatly to Hackitt鈥檚 report, which majors on the dangers of prescriptive guidance and the need for the industry to take responsibility for complying with the 黑洞社区 Regulations. Experts have warned that there are many in the industry who are dependent on prescriptive guidance as they lack the expertise to make critical decisions about complex building safety issues. But Lane鈥檚 findings reveal how a culture of flawed prescriptive guidance and design and construction teams鈥� failure to properly interrogate the fire performance of cladding systems may have resulted in the widespread fitment of flammable material to the outside of tall buildings. There is a strong case that those working on multiple-occupancy tall buildings and other buildings should have the competence to make the right decisions to ensure these are safe.

Given this damming indictment of all those associated with the refurbishment of Grenfell Tower it is sad, although perhaps not surprising given the threat of criminal proceedings hanging over all the parties, that on Monday Richard Millett QC, counsel to the inquiry, felt compelled to warn the companies and organisations called to give evidence not to 鈥渋ndulge in a merry-go-round of buck passing鈥�. For the benefit of the wider future of this industry, let鈥檚 hope those companies and organisations take note.