Safety in numbers

More than one in five councils stepped up fire safety work on tower blocks following a high-rise blaze that killed six people.

That’s the stark finding from the responses of 52 councils in England to freedom of information requests from Inside Housing to find out the action they took both before and after the fatal fire at Lakanal House, Camberwell, on 3 July.

The Lakanal blaze poses questions for local authorities because the fire spread unexpectedly quickly - prompting concern about tower blocks up and down the country. Shortly after the fire landlord Southwark Council was issued with fire safety notices on three of its other blocks. The notices found that it had not carried out adequate fire risk assessments of the block.

Under the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005, which came into force in October 2006, social landlords are responsible for risk assessing their stock and fire authorities are responsible for making sure the checks are adequate.

Inside Housing’s Safe as Houses campaign aims to stop preventable deaths from gas and fire and calls for a national database of tower blocks, and their most recent risk assesments, to be set up. Last week we revealed through FOI requests to fire authorities, that they had stepped up high-rise safety efforts after 3 July.

This week, continuing the Safe as Houses campaign, a new set of FOIs seeks to find out what action councils and their arm’s-length management organisations have taken to fulfil their fire safety responsibilities before Lakanal and whether they have changed their stance since.

Four of the 52 councils which responded revealed they had carried out no fire risk assessments at all before the 3 of July.

Ten had stepped up action after the tragedy, which Southwark has also done. In total our survey found 282 blocks of four or more storeys that did not have a fire risk assessement before 3 July.

Sheffield Council has 25 tower blocks and had done no ‘formal comprehensive fire risk assessments’ before the Lakanal fire. It had completed 20 FRAs by 21 September.

Karl Tupling, director of housing at Sheffield Council, says: ‘Understandably the Lakanal House fire is making councils, housing management organisations and fire services question our collective understanding about fire safety in tower blocks. But it would be inaccurate and misleading to assume that this means that fire safety has not been a priority before now.

‘In advance of the publication of the Camberwell report [the police investigation into the Lakanal blaze], Sheffield has already begun a programme to reassess fire safety in residential blocks, starting with our 25 tower blocks. This is being undertaken by an externally appointed expert consultant, [ALMO] Sheffield Homes and Sheffield Council.’

Fire risk assessments in sheltered accommodation as well as tower blocks are being prioritised, he adds.

Lambeth Council had assessed just two of its 75 blocks of seven or more storeys before the Lakanal blaze.

By the time it responded to the FOI, on 2 October, it had started FRAs on three more blocks and it has now pledged to assess the fire risks of all its blocks of six or more storeys by March 2010.

A job for the specialists

So why has Lambeth’s FRA work taken so long?

Cathy Deplessis, chief executive of Lambeth’s arm’s-length management organisation Lambeth Living, states that the area’s housing stock is ‘larger than most other London boroughs’.

‘By December all blocks over 10 storeys will hold a valid fire safety risk assessment, with the remaining high rise blocks being completed by March 2010, in line with most other London boroughs,’ she says.

‘High rise blocks require specialists to ensure that the necessary complex fire risk assessments are carried out properly and we have already appointed a firm to carry out that work. Blocks considered to be of higher risk will be assessed first - the high-rise risk assessment programme is scheduled to be completed within the next 19 weeks.’

Bob Hadfield, head of technical services at Cambridge Council, is more forthright, admitting that the council is ‘behind’ in its programme of FRAs - but that it had had to prioritise which buildings to assess when the law came into force in 2006.

It has 68 communal areas - such as corridors - in an unspecified number of four or more storey buildings, and had carried out seven full FRAs prior to 3 July.

Mr Hadfield confesses that it has been difficult to recruit experienced staff to carry out the FRAs in the midst of a housing boom.

‘With the recession that has changed and we have no problems recruiting now,’ he adds.

Cambridge Council will be doing 120 risk assessments - including on the rest of the four or more storey blocks - over the next year.

ALMO Tower Hamlets Homes had assessed 58 of its 128 tower blocks before the Lakanal House fire and within 48 hours after the blaze it carried out an urgent investigation of 13 blocks similar in construction to the Southwark building. It then completed the remaining assessments in the following three weeks.

‘Tower Hamlets Homes takes every precaution to safeguard residents’ homes from fire and other hazards and carries out regular safety audits of the housing stock we manage,’ a spokesperson states.

Birmingham Council is one of the most efficient. The landlord has 229 high-rise blocks, with about 4,500 low-rise blocks. All of them had been assessed before 3 July and a second round of surveys is just beginning.

John Lines, cabinet member for housing at the council, says it needed to make high-rise a priority because of the number of blocks it has.

The FOIs also reveal that the risk assessments that have been carried out by councils and ALMOs have unearthed potential problems in a number of cases.

ALMO Hackney Homes has 258 blocks of six or more storeys, of which it had assessed 206 blocks before 3 July. It has completed the remaining 52 since. It has spent or is planning to spend £3.5 million on improvement and refurbishment works to meet fire safety standards.

A spokesperson states: ‘This includes works to renew communal fire doors as well as improvements to communal area smoke ventilation systems, emergency lighting improvements on internal communal landings and new dry risers which help the fire brigade to fight any fires.’

Issues identified in other risk assessments include rubbish in corridors, lighting not working and fire doors left or wedged open and not of the correct standard.

Bristol Council inspected its 63 blocks before 3 July and is now employing additional staff to do works, such as improving signage, installing fire alarms and train employees.

Decent homes warning

But Arnold Tarling, a surveyor with 20 years’ experience of inspecting public sector housing, does not believe checks in the fire risk assessments go far enough. ‘My feeling is buildings should be assessed more regularly - more than once a year, before any significant works to the building, during and at the end of it,’ he says.

He is also concerned that fire safety in many tower blocks could have been compromised during refurbishment work. ‘Decent homes standards are making places less safe,’ he adds.

Oldham Council’s response to the FOI request suggests this may be a problem. It states that extensive refurbishment work on one block raised some concern due to extensive internal/external refurbishment work in 2005/06. The council has not elaborated further.

Sam Webb, the architect who investigated the collapse of the Ronan Point tower block in Newham, east London, following a gas explosion in 1968, adds that he believes the structure of buildings should be checked in the FRAs.

‘If I was asked to check one of these buildings I would ask for the original drawing and look to see if any alterations had been carried out,’ he says.

Mr Webb points out that false wooden ceilings in Southwark Council’s Marie Curie block, which is near to Lakanal House and is one of the towers served a fire safety notice, were taken out soon after the fire.

He adds: ‘What’s the quality of the risk assessments, who actually assesses they have been done properly and in what ways are we living in a fool’s paradise? There needs to be an outside body that checks on this - to make sure they have done it.’

A part of our Safe as Houses campaign Inside Housing is calling for a national database of tower blocks to be set up, containing up to date information about FRAs.

Our FOIs of councils this week and fire authorities last week reveal that both have stepped up work since 3 July.

While attention is concentrated on this area it is important to take action to ensure that landlords’ focus is not allowed to slip again in the future.

For more on our campaign see the Safe as Houses page

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