NEWS


Grenfell inquiry


by asking if it was right to say Mr Rek was not aware of ‘what would constitute’ a material of limited combustibility’, to which Mr Rek responded ‘correct’.


Engineers accused The Guardian reported on emails revealed to have been sent between senior fire engineers and consultants at Exova, which privately admitted that plans to refurbish the tower were making ‘a crap condition worse’, and plans to add additional flats around a single staircase ‘not great’. An email in August 2012 was revealed from senior Exova consultant Cate Cooney, which came after speaking to Mr Sounes that month about the refurbishment plans. Her email to colleague Andrew


Martyn, which was sent four years before the refurbishment was signed off, read: ‘Basically I have told him we can massage the proposal to something acceptable, with separation, lobbies etc, but that there are approval risks in the project on the ff [firefighting] shaft/ MOE [means of escape] front. They are making an existing crap condition worse so it’s a matter of working the worse [sic] bits outs and making the new stuff work. No sprinklers wanted.’ Ms Cooney also asked if Exova


had any contacts at RBKC’s building control department responsible for approving the work’s compliance with building regulations. At the inquiry also, Mr Sounes answered questions before being ‘taken ill after two hours of questioning’, and ‘appearing close to tears’. Inquiry chair Sir Martin Moore-Bick stated: ‘I’m very sorry to tell you that Mr Sounes has been taken ill and it’s not going to be possible for him to continue giving evidence today or even tomorrow’. However before this, he responded


to the Exova email, stating that it ‘raises a level of concern I was not aware of’. When he was asked whether Studio E had considered installing sprinklers, he said: ‘It wouldn’t be something we would


16 MAY 2020 www.frmjournal.com


hold a view on. We would have expected the fire consultant to recommend, or building control to advise any requirement. I don’t recall sprinklers being discussed or raised as something that may be needed.’


Survey done without site visit Prior to the inquiry being suspended, Warrington Guardian reported on the last testimony given at the hearings from Exova consultant Ms Cooney, who had stated that she had carried out a fire strategy report in 2012 on Grenfell Tower in its original ‘state’ but ‘without visiting the site itself’, and that her report included a ‘number of assumptions’. She undertook her report from


Warrington ‘based on microfiche drawings, despite them being of “very poor” quality’, as well as relying on information from a colleague who had visited the block, with her draft report – ‘which was not updated’ afterwards – containing ‘assumptions’ including that Grenfell had been built to the ‘prevailing standards of the day’. In one section, which was marked


‘evacuation principles’, she stated that ‘due to an assumed high degree of compartmentation and therefore a low probability of fire spread beyond the dwelling of fire origin, simultaneous evacuation of the building is unlikely to be considered necessary’. In addition, she noted that the existing smoke ventilation system was ‘unsatisfactory from a modern


perspective’, and ‘should be assessed in order to ensure that a satisfactory level of safety is provided to residents’. This was because ventilation


was ‘critical’ to the tower’s stay put policy, and when asked by inquiry lawyer Richard Millett why she did ‘not explicitly advise that the ventilation system should be completely replaced and updated’, she replied: ‘I think it’s clear in that paragraph that it needs to be assessed to make sure it meets a satisfactory level of performance. I don’t think it’s not clear’. Despite not being ‘directly


involved’ in refurbishing the tower, she had stated in emails that some of the proposed alterations would be ‘making an existing crap condition worse’, while others could be ‘massaged’ to help them ‘satisfy’ building regulations, and also noted that there were approval risks in the refurbishment concerning firefighting shafts and means of escape. Her witness statement read:


‘My reference to “massaging” the proposals was to recommending changes to the proposals I had seen regarding the refurbishment to make them satisfactory from a building regulations perspective. The proposals I was referring to were the alterations to the lower four floors, which involved creating new residential accommodation on floors where there had previously been no such accommodation, and changing layouts.’


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