Different buildings
not fit over the two lifting bolts and finally, after many failed attempts, a man smashed one bolt flat with a sledge hammer. The panel was propped up on broken pieces of flat asbestos cement sheet. A student queried if that was safe. They were quickly moved off the site and sent back to the AA in Bedford Square. When Mr Fairweather heard of this, he
said: ‘One day, one of these blocks will collapse’. I first met him in 1961, when he was writing BS CP3 Chapter IV. He gave it to me to read. While Inner London was covered by s20, there existed no similar legislation for the rest of the UK; in fact, no national building regulations existed, only model byelaws. National regulations, which were created
in 1965 to cover outer London when the GLC was formed, were extended to England and Wales. BS CP3 covered England and Wales, recommending two staircases for alternative means of escape and a ‘stay put’ policy, provided each flat was a one hour fire compartment. In London, s20 advised alternative means of escape and two staircases, although the district surveyor granted a waiver for Lakanal for only one escape staircase. Alternative ways out of each flat were so complex that people did not know how to use them in the panic of the 2009 fire. Lakanal had set a precedent in London, as early as 1957.
High rise push
Previous governments had carefully prepared the ground for high rise. In 1956, the new Housing Finance Act stopped all housing subsidies for houses and they were only paid for blocks of four or more storeys. The higher the block, the more subsidy councils received – this was to last until 1967. Councils were pressurised to use one of the many large panel systems (LPS) and few could resist central government. But if councils felt they could rely on what central government was forcing them to use, they were in for a rude shock, for when Ronan Point collapsed and local authorities looked for redress, central government washed its hands. The government had set up the National
Building Agency (NBA) to check the many systems it was pushing. However, when the crunch came with Ronan Point, the NBA had only looked at houses. Home Secretary James Callaghan MP instructed the chief architect Cleeve Barr and the chief engineer to report back to him with a secret report. Two days after the collapse, they found that the critical H2 joint would fail at 1.4psi on the 18th floor. They were equally critical of other LPSs. All would fail in a gas explosion. Why had noone ever checked this? In 1968, the government and industry cowered behind the lack of any
FOCUS
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