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Engineer who reviewed Grenfell fire safety strategy ‘completely ignorant’ of cladding plans
The engineer who reviewed the fire strategy for the Grenfell Tower refurbishment had no clue that cladding was part of the plans, the inquiry into the disaster heard on Monday.
Dr Tony Pearson, who was a senior consultant at Exova until 2016, said that at the time of reviewing the document, he was “completely ignorant of the fact that the works included overcladding”.
There was no reference to cladding in a summary of the refurbishment works in the fire strategy checked over by Dr Pearson and authored by Exova colleague Terry Ashton.
The report has come under scrutiny for the line: “It is considered that the proposed changes will have no adverse effect on the building in relation to external fire spread but this will be confirmed by an analysis in a future issue of this report.”
No future fire strategy considered the possible safety impact of the cladding, which has been identified by the inquiry as the primary reason for rapid fire spread across Grenfell Tower.
Asked during the inquiry if he believed that the fire strategy should have been updated in this respect, Dr Pearson said: “Generally speaking, yes.”
A subsequent fire strategy report by Exova, the last to be carried out, did not update the passage relating to external fire spread and was reviewed by a much more junior member of staff.
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Dr Pearson, who is an experienced fire engineer and an active on-call firefighter, said he was aware that cladding systems could pose a fire risk but did not know that composite panels were being used as rainscreen facades as was the case at Grenfell.
He was sent a copy of the firm’s second outline fire safety strategy for Grenfell Tower at 3.40pm on 24 October 2013 and asked to review it before the end of the day.
Just 33 minutes later, he sent it on to Mr Ashton, adding: “I have added something (although if you think what I have added is too long and draws too much attention to the issue, feel free to shorten it).”
Dr Pearson’s change had been to add a paragraph noting that “sharing means of escape between residential and non-residential accommodation” – as in the refurbishment plans – “is not endorsed by current statutory guidance”.
But he argued that this did not breach building regulations because the proposals were “a continuation of the existing principles for means of escape in the building” and that the fire risks from offices and a boxing gym in the building were “no greater than those in a typical flat”.
Mr Ashton, Exova’s lead for the project, replied that he had sent the 10-page report out without reading Dr Pearson’s change but said he would not have agreed to the amendment anyway because it was “debateable”.
That was despite Exova having a policy of peer reviewing all advice before sending it on to clients.
“Let’s hope that Paul Hanson doesn’t pick up on it,” Mr Ashton had added. Mr Hanson was a building control officer at Kensington and Chelsea Council.
The authority’s building control department “had a reputation of being particularly hard to convince to accept anything non-standard”, Dr Pearson told the inquiry.
However, he insisted that Exova was “not trying to pull the wool on building control’s eyes”.
Dr Pearson said his role in the Grenfell Tower refurbishment project was to provide ad hoc assistance to Mr Ashton.
Later, on 31 March 2015, Dr Pearson said in an email to Mr Ashton that “if significant flames are ejected from the windows, this would lead to failure of the cladding system, with the external surface falling away and exposing the cavity, eliminating the potential for unseen fire spread”.
Dr Pearson said the email referred to a specific question about whether cavity barriers or stronger fire breaks were needed between compartments and that he still did not know which products were being proposed.
He had concluded the former, but said at the inquiry that this was “based on the assumption that everything else is code compliant”, including cavity barriers being installed around the windows.
It appears that Mr Ashton had already responded to Neil Crawford of architects Studio E, who had asked the question – again, seemingly in breach of Exova’s own peer review policies.
Asked if he ever considered looking further into the cladding system that was planned for Grenfell Tower at this point, Dr Pearson said that was “one of the big, great what-ifs” and that he “took it on trust” that Mr Ashton knew which materials would be used.
The Grenfell Tower Inquiry continues.
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