60 tower blocks fail fire tests – hospitals probed

Cladding was removed from a tower in Camden’s Chalcots Estate for testing. Residents were subsequently moved out (Image: Alamy)

The construction industry is being engulfed by crisis as the government revealed that cladding on 60 tower blocks – all those tested so far – had failed fire tests, with another 540 still to be looked at in the wake of the Grenfell fire, which killed 79 people.

The Daily Telegraph reported that the government faces an estimated bill of more than £600m for replacing flammable cladding on housing blocks after the Grenfell Tower disaster after experts estimated that replacing the cladding on each block would top £1m and costs would spiral far higher if residents had to be evacuated during building work.

The news comes as Camden Council on Sunday evacuated thousands of people from four blocks in its Chalcots Estate and housing associations in other parts of the country began stripping off the cladding. And Celotex, the manufacturer of the insulation on Grenfell Tower, said it would no longer be supplying the material for high rises above 18m.

Simon Taylor, who has fitted cladding to 25 local authority tower blocks as director of a Yorkshire-based company called Northern Heights, told The Telegraph: “You can work on £1m each.

“It’s not just the cladding but the scaffolding, it’s about access, taking it down, remaking it, redesigning and putting it back again.”

The cost could rise because of insurance worries after the Grenfell Tower fire.

Buildings tested in England so far

Stephen Ledbetter, former director of the Centre for Window and Cladding Technology, estimated it would be roughly £1.2m to reclad a tower block the size of Grenfell.

The government said high-rise buildings in 25 local authorities across the country have now failed fire cladding safety tests.

The Department for Communities and Local Government (DCLG) said Doncaster, Norwich, Stockton-on-Tees and Sunderland all had buildings that failed tests, while Manchester, Plymouth and Portsmouth have already been named.

The frantic activity to remove cladding comes as the Metropolitan Police said it would look to bring manslaughter charges to those it found responsible. 

Both the insulation and cladding used on Grenfell Tower has failed a safety test and should never have been used on the building, police have said.

The homicide and serious crime unit of the Metropolitan Police said it had “seized documents” from a number of private companies and organisations involved in the refurbishment of the tower.

Detective superintendent Fiona McCormack, who is leading the case, said police were investigating manslaughter, criminal offences and breaches of legislation and regulations.

“We are looking at every criminal offence from manslaughter onwards, we are looking at health and safety and fire safety offences and we are reviewing every company at the moment involved in the building and refurbishment of Grenfell Tower,” The Times reported.

“Preliminary tests on the insulation samples collected from Grenfell Tower showed that they combusted soon after the test started. The initial tests on the cladding tiles also failed the safety tests.”

She also warned that search work would not be completed until the end of the year. “We have been in Grenfell Tower, from top to bottom, last week,” she said. “Next week we will be installing a lift to the outside of the building to assist. But our forensic search may not be complete until the end of the year.

“There is a terrible reality that we may not find or identify everyone who died due to the intense heat.”

The fire began when a fridge freezer, model Hotpoint FF175BP, combusted. The product has not been recalled and police have forwarded the issue to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy.

Meanwhile, Celotex is stopping the supply of insulation used at Grenfell Tower for rainscreen cladding systems on buildings over 18m high.

The building materials giant announced the move on Friday following a police statement on initial findings of its investigations.

Celotex said: “We note the comments made by Scotland Yard at this morning’s briefing in respect of the insulation used in Grenfell Tower.

“In view of the focus on rainscreen cladding systems and the insulation forming part of them, Celotex believes that the right thing to do is to stop the supply of Celotex RS5000 for rainscreen cladding systems in buildings over 18m tall with immediate effect (including in respect of ongoing projects), pending further clarity.

“Celotex manufactures and supplies the insulation product RS5000 for use in multicomponent rainscreen cladding systems for buildings over 18m tall.

“Safety testing was undertaken on RS5000 as part of a particular rainscreen cladding system and this is described in documents available on our website.

“As noted in those documents, any changes to components of the cladding system or construction methods used need to be considered by the relevant building designer.

“Given the developments of the past twenty four hours, we wish to discuss with the authorities how we can restore confidence in the products that we supply to the above 18m market.

“At this early stage, it would not be appropriate for Celotex to make any further comment at this time.”

Labour’s John McDonnell has claimed victims of the Grenfell Tower fire were “murdered” by “political decisions”.

Speaking at Glastonbury Festival on Sunday, the shadow chancellor blamed the decision to “view housing as only for financial speculation”.

Housing minister Alok Sharma said it was “disappointing” that people wanted to make it “a party political issue”.

At least 79 people are feared to have died in the fire in west London, which began in the early hours of 14 June.

It is thought the building’s recently-installed cladding may have helped the fire to spread.

The type of insulation material used on the tower is also being investigated, along with suggestions that the way the insulation and cladding was installed could have created a chimney effect.

In further developments:

Plans to test every hospital for fire safety in the wake of the fire that is presumed to have killed at least 79 were in chaos after fire chiefs told hospital leaders they did not have the resources to carry out the inspections.

NHS watchdogs had instructed every hospital to arrange safety checks by local fire services by the end of the weekend, but senior officers from the country’s nine fire services said they were not consulted and could not meet the request.

One NHS trust chief executive told Health Service Journal there was “chaos” in the capital, with London Fire Brigade refusing to carry out checks because of the volume of work it was already undertaking in the wake of the Grenfell disaster.

Controversial government proposals to relax fire safety standards for new school buildings as a cost-cutting measure are to be dropped by ministers in a major policy U-turn following the Grenfell Tower fire, reported The Observer.

The move is evidence of a dramatic change of approach across government, from a previous preoccupation with deregulation and cost-saving to a safety-first attitude, in the aftermath of the west London tower block tragedy.

Across government, ministers have been ordered to look again at fire safety policies in their departments. An urgent rethink has been under way at the Department for Education, which had begun a consultation on official new draft guidance on fire safety in schools last year that was widely seen as a substantial watering down of safety requirements.

Fire safety experts, backed by senior MPs, expressed deep alarm over the past year at the plans and warned ministers repeatedly that they could have disastrous results.

Part of the revised draft guidance – which The Observer has learned will now be dropped – removed the requirement that sprinklers be included in the design of new schools and stated, instead, that “school buildings do not need to be sprinkler protected to achieve a reasonable standard of life safety”. It also said it “no longer includes an expectation that most new school buildings will be fitted with them”.

A government source insisted: “What we would like to stress is that what we do will be a strengthening of fire safety requirements, not any weakening of them.” Asked if that meant a rethink on sprinklers in new schools, the source said: “That would be entirely fair.”

A DfE spokesman said: “There will be no change to the fire safety laws for schools or our determination to protect children’s safety.”

Two board members of the housing charity Shelter, including its chairman Sir Derek Myers, have resigned amid reports of internal disquiet over the organisation’s allegedly muted response to the Grenfell Tower fire, reported The Guardian.

Myers is a former chief executive of Kensington and Chelsea council, which owns Grenfell Tower, while trustee Tony Rice is chairman of Xerxes Equity, the sole shareholder in Omnis Exteriors – the company that sold the cladding used in the tower.

A statement from Shelter’s interim chief executive, Graeme Brown, said: “Tony Rice has resigned as a trustee of Shelter and the chair of the board of trustees, Sir Derek Myers, has also resigned. The role of trustee is entirely voluntary and unpaid, and we wish them the best for the future.”

Asked subsequently to explain the joint resignations, a Shelter spokesperson said: “The trustees decided to step away from their roles in the interests of the charity. They would not want there to be any unnecessary distraction from the work we are doing to help people affected by the Grenfell fire.”