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Birmingham Council forced to reconsider sprinkler retrofit decision
Birmingham City Council will be forced to reconsider its plans to install sprinklers in all 213 of its tower blocks.
Councillors on the authority’s Housing and Homes Overview and Scrutiny Committee ruled that the cabinet should consider the decision again at a meeting Tuesday night.
It will need to review the decision to retrofit sprinklers in more than 7,000 high rise homes over the next two years, agreed at a meeting last month, in its next session after the local elections in May.
The council, which has the largest housing stock of any in the country with around 62,000 homes, announced plans to retrofit sprinklers in its tower blocks a week after the Grenfell Tower fire last June.
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The programme will cost £31m in total, with the council requesting £19.4m from the government to help pay for the work.
Barry Henley, a Labour councillor and former chief executive of Chubb Fire Engineering, along with fellow Labour member Mike Leddy, requested that the decision be called in.
In an email submitted before the meeting, Mr Henley called the council’s sprinkler decision “very unwise”.
“The executive has overlooked the scientific evidence that our tower blocks are already safe and protected against fire in accordance with the building regulations and therefore adding sprinklers will not make them safer,” he said.
“This is novel and there is no sensible reason to equip buildings which have been safe for 50 years when they will all be demolished in the next few years.”
Conservatives in Birmingham have made an election pledge to get rid of all the council’s tower blocks in just 10 years.
