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External walls should have been checked by risk assessors, expert tells Grenfell Inquiry

External walls should have been considered in routine fire risk assessments of buildings before the Grenfell Tower blaze, an expert witness has told the inquiry into the fire. 

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Dr Barbara Lane gave evidence to the inquiry today (picture: Grenfell Tower Inquiry)
Dr Barbara Lane gave evidence to the inquiry today (picture: Grenfell Tower Inquiry)
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External walls should have been considered in routine fire risk assessments of buildings before the Grenfell Tower blaze, an expert witness has told the inquiry into the fire #UKhousing

Today, Dr Barbara Lane gave evidence into a lengthy report she has prepared into the management and maintenance of Grenfell Tower as the inquiry returned from its summer break.

She contradicted an earlier expert witness, consultant Colin Todd, by telling the panel that the external walls of buildings should have been a risk considered by assessors.

This is an important question with regards to Grenfell Tower, where risk assessor Carl Stokes deemed the external walls, and therefore the highly combustible cladding system fitted to it, outside the scope of his assessments and did not make any major assessment of its safety.


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Mr Todd had previously told the inquiry that he did not believe the external wall should have formed part of most statutory fire risk assessments, which focused instead on the internal common parts.

But Dr Lane today said the walls should have been considered where they met directly with flats, making them part of the overall fire protection of the building.

“Any building where the compartmentation abuts the external wall… the external wall is a fire safety provision,” she said. “Where you rely on the protection afforded by the external wall it is a collective protective measure.”

She said clients of hers were becoming increasingly concerned about materials used in the external wall from 2013 onwards, making it a feature of her risk assessment work for high rises.

“I can’t say to a client, ‘we’ve sorted out your general fire precautions for this building, I haven’t looked at the wall, here’s hoping it doesn’t cause extensive fire spread,’” she said. “Because the truth is, if extensive fire spread can be supported in a wall… I am unable to say to the responsible person the classic evacuation strategy [stay put] remains suitable.”

Mr Stokes did advise staff at Kensington and Chelsea Tenant Management Organisation (KCTMO), which managed Grenfell Tower, to seek assurances as to the compliance and fire rating of the cladding panels. He also told them in an email that the cladding “complied with building regulations”.

But he based this view on the fact that it had been approved by building control and never made an independent assessment of the materials used in the system himself.

Dr Lane also criticised Mr Stokes for a “significant failure” in failing to explain the connection between the required actions he listed in his risk assessments and the potential consequences of not completing them.

“Are you saying Mr Stokes should have spelt out to [KCTMO] the particular possible consequences of not taking each of the remedial actions?” asked Richard Millett QC, lead counsel to the inquiry (pictured above).

Dr Lane explained that 90% of the actions he identified were “high priority” but the overall risk was always deemed “tolerable”.

“If you are a responsible person and you have a building stock where everything is apparently high priority all the time, you need to sit down and actually understand, ‘what does that mean? How much risk am I carrying here and how much risk am I causing my relevant persons,’” she said.

Dr Lane also disagreed with Mr Todd’s view that a British Standard guide to the methodology for fire risk assessments – PAS 79 – was primarily understood to apply to commercial not residential properties.

This is important, because this standard, which Mr Todd authored, made provision for the identification of disabled residents and their evacuation – something which did not happen at Grenfell Tower.

Mr Todd accepted that this was not something made clear within PAS 79 itself.

“Maybe someone else would come in here and tell you they heard that every day, but in my working environment, that’s not something I’ve ever been aware of or had to deal with,” Dr Lane said.

“I think that if an author of a document thinks that, they should say it at the front. I would like to know that as a user of the document.”

Dr Lane will continue giving evidence for the remainder of this week. She is the final witness in this module, before the inquiry moves on to consider the training and preparation of the London Fire Brigade.

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