Apathy Ignorance and Denial
M
ore than 100 guests attended the Association for Specialist Fire Protection (ASFP)
annual President’s Lunch, at the Palace of Westminster, to hear ASFP President Brian Robinson spell out the current problems with regard to the control of fire protection in the UK. “I have been questioning whether the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005, the CDM Regulations 2007 and Regulation 16B of the Buildings Act were working together to raise installation of appropriate fire protection measures” he commented. “Have matters improved? Sadly, I think not”.
He blamed the lack of a national audit
procedure and claimed that the biggest challenges faced by the industry were apathy, ignorance and denial. “We all recall the scene of the tragic fire at Lakanal House that unfolded on our television screens recently, in which six people sadly lost their lives. At the time, the media were asking the obvious question – how could this happen? Lakanal House gained national media attention because people died”,
he stressed. “Only then were questions asked of Lambeth and other Local Authorities, to ascertain their legal requirement to undertake fire risk assessment”. He questioned if Lakanal House was a one
off, or if it was symptomatic of a much more deeply rooted problem. He also queried if other issues were contributing to a picture of worsening public fire protection in the UK and pointed to the recent Association of British Insurers (ABI) fire loss figures. They show fire damage up by some 16 % to £1.3 billion, which represents a record high. Life loss figures also indicate that we will see a significant rise over the next year. “Such a combination of factors should at least raise the question of, why”, he stressed.
Get it wrong and you run the risk of killing, or seriously injuring its occupants.’
“Disasters such as Lakanal House could be minimised by much tighter Building Regulations” he claimed. “However, it is arguably just as true to state that if appropriate fire protection measures were installed correctly, in accordance with the Building Regulations, both the human and financial cost would be considerably lessened. The demise of the
Clerk of Works is symptomatic of how, piece by piece, our systems for delivering excellence of works in buildings have been stripped away and the matter has been made worse through the introduction of competitive bidding between local authorities and approved inspector bodies” he maintained. Mr. Robinson confirmed that if the evidence of malpractice or inadequate passive fire protection witnessed by many ASFP members on an almost daily basis was anything to go by, the courts should be overflowing. The journey from the architect’s initial design, to occupancy, is one loaded with opportunity for error, compounded upon error. The ASFP President drew the analogy of taking delivery of a new car. “Do you give much thought to the process of manufacture, or how the vehicle was inspected before delivery? You assume they put brakes in it, that the steering wheel is connected correctly and that your family will be safe in it. If you think that way about a car, why shouldn’t the same rules apply to the fire protection measures installed in a building? The hazards are the same. Get it wrong and you run the risk of killing, or seriously injuring its occupants.
‘How could this happen?’
“It is simply not good enough to state that
measures exist to ensure against incompetent workmanship, that everyone will take ownership of their responsibilities, utilise properly qualified people and proper independent audits”. All too often when deficiencies come to light one can expect to hear the retort ‘Well Building Control has passed it off’, even though the intent of Building Control is to check designs against regulations, and not to carry out detailed checks on installed works. That is squarely the duty of the person carrying out the work, who often contrary to what he may think, can be prosecuted. So is government local or national doing
anything about this very issue? There is no doubt that Government clearly expects that the duties of Building Regulation 16B will be reliably carried out and the building user/owner will be fully informed on the fire protection provisions in the building he now occupies, and that these assumed provisions will still apply after 20, years, or more. Furthermore subsequent fire risk assessments will ensure that this continues to happen, or will they?
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