Industry not reacting to failures

The tragic events at the Grenfell Tower fire should have been a wake-up call for the construction industry. The Hackitt report and the harrowing evidence at the Public Inquiry has revealed serious issues across the board which we should all be striving not to repeat, says a reporter.

They are concerned that those in the construction industry have not reacted at all to this tragedy and are carrying on as if nothing has changed. Whilst the current regulatory framework has not yet changed (although the government has just released a consultation on this), Dame Judith Hackitt has said that the industry should not wait for legislative change and should act now to ensure the safety of buildings.

Following the Grenfell Tower fire, the reporter has personally experienced clients and contractors putting money before safety, and consultants giving poor advice on fire related issues. Examples include fire engineers attempting to justify poor designs rather than ensuring good design from the start, and structural engineers poorly advising on fire related aspects of the structural design. The reporter speculates that some of this may be down to a fear of telling the client that they can’t do something, combined with a lack of knowledge and experience in the realm of fire design.

The reporter has also uncovered products being put into buildings without the certification or justification which demonstrates their adequate performance. In one case with certification to a relevant fire related British Standard which shows it does not meet the required standard in the guidance in the Approved Documents. While this could be deemed satisfactory if the performance of the materials is properly assessed as a whole, the reporter is referring to products being selected purely based on cost without regard to fire performance.

If attention is not paid to the products and their likely performance in the building, then surely it is only a matter of time before some unsafe combination of material and circumstance come together.

Prior to the government ban on combustible materials on high-rise homes, the reporter had experienced contractors and consultants proposing to install combustible insulation in cladding products for tall buildings, without thought or justification as to the performance of the system in fire, and the likely consequence. They will have known that this was reported to be a major contributor to the rapid fire spread at Grenfell.

Whilst the facts are not fully known until the Public Inquiry completes its work, the publicity alone should have been enough to make people review what they were doing and in this case to realise that what they were doing didn’t comply with current guidance, let alone any lessons that needed to be learnt from the Grenfell tragedy. The reporter continues to see combustible products proposed in high rise residential buildings, despite the ban.

In the view of the reporter, this is simply not good enough, and it is time for all parties to take responsibility. Buildings are complex and bespoke, and the reporter acknowledges that the overall responsibility is not straight forward. However, the reporter believes that if each developer, architect, consultant, contractor, tradesperson and product supplier were to consider safety as their first priority, then many of the issues that they see would not occur.

Professionals are bound by their Institution’s Code of Conduct, but the reporter wonders whether all professionals are really taking this seriously.