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Gas supply remains on in unstrengthened large panel block
The gas supply in a south London tower block has not been switched off three months after surveyors discovered the building had not been strengthened against collapse in the event of a gas explosion.
A spokesperson for Lewisham Homes, which manages the seven-storey Lethbridge Close block, said the gas will be switched off completely in February next year, the supply has been disconnected in empty flats and gas cookers will be replaced with electric appliances.
Arnold Tarling, a chartered surveyor who warned Southwark Council about the dangers of a gas explosion at the Ledbury Estate, said back in September that Lewisham Homes should “strip the gas out immediately”.
The block is part of wider demolition plans for two estates and the spokesperson said out of 565 properties only 70 still have residents living in them and more than half of these have been offered alternative accommodation.
Lewisham Council had said in September that it would move residents out “as quickly as possible”.
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The spokesperson added: “Many of the remaining residents are elderly and vulnerable and our priority needs to be their safety, warmth and security. They will not want to be moved more than once and we do not think it is in their best interests to be evacuated in the middle of winter to emergency accommodation which is not adapted to their needs.
“Instead, we are putting in place a range of mitigating measures to significantly reduce the risk to residents while we escalate our planned rehousing programme. These measures include disconnecting gas from empty properties, replacing gas cookers with electric appliances, carrying out weekly gas safety checks and increasing safety measures around existing gas supplies.
“We anticipate being able to relocate all our remaining residents over the next few months and we will turn off the gas completely by the end of February 2018.”
Southwark Council switched off the gas supply to four large panel system blocks in August after engineers said they could not confirm the buildings had been strengthened to withstand a gas explosion. Concerns were raised about the strength of large panel system blocks after the partial collapse of Ronan Point in 1968 following a gas explosion, which left four people dead.
Following this disaster the government told landlords of large panel system blocks of six storeys or higher to either remove the gas supply from these buildings or carry out strengthening work.
