FOCUS
Grenfell progress
traditional route of a BR review. Why haven’t we had one for 14 years? Let’s remember where we were in England prior to 14 June 2017. FRS successes in reducing deaths and injuries from more than 700 deaths per annum in 1990 to 264 in 2016, and fires attended from 600,000 per annum to 200,000 over the same period, was nothing less than spectacular. These huge reductions can be attributed to a variety of factors, including: • the change in the foam filled furniture regulations, originally passed in 1988
• the community safety activity widely adopted by UK FRSs in the late 1990s
•
central government funding of advertising campaigns
• widespread provision of smoke detectors installed by firefighters
Whatever the reason, government ministers were overjoyed; we had cracked the fire problem, or so it seemed. Sadly in my view this led to complacency; FRS spending fell victim to austerity, and ministers simply did not believe we needed a review of BRs. And then Grenfell happened. Many wise heads from the UK fire industry have
control and fire and rescue services (FRSs) see additional resources, following any increase in their anticipated workload. If the Hackitt Review taught us anything, it was
that hard pressed local authorities were already struggling with competence and capacity. Expanding their statutory responsibilities without further funding will not help the new system – whatever it looks like. So the new legislation may sort out the system for enforcement, but what about the rule book itself? In late 2018 we saw the launch of the first
comprehensive consultation on the fire aspect of BRs in over 15 years. Since then, we have had the consultation on the proposed requirement to install sprinklers in flats above 18m – welcome, but quite frankly years too late. We also have a realisation that stay put can be problematic, so there are proposals for an FRS activated evacuation system for flats. Apart from that, there has been nothing, and my conclusion is that if we are to see more ambitious change – and surely we will – we will probably go down the traditional route of regulatory change. This is through the Building Regulations Advisory Committee (BRAC), or whatever it evolves into following the proposed system changes.
Past and future
So where does that leave us, in the wake of there being nothing to report on changes to BRs and the FSO? I think that we will now go down the more
commented on the tragic and serious events that led to that fire, quite correctly pronouncing that it should never happen again. I was pretty sure it involved combustible cladding and insulation, and also knew we had been aware of these risks for some considerable time; as had BRAC, the statutory advisory body that the Secretary of State consults on proposals to make or change BRs. Our regulations manifest themselves in a group
of Approved Documents, with fire safety covered by Approved Document B (ADB). Prior to Grenfell we had not had a review of ADB for more than 12 years, and this complacency troubled many in the industry – this failure to conduct a review did not mean however that fire safety had not been discussed by BRAC. It had been, and many of us were aware of the potential dangers of insulation and cladding long before June 2017.
FPA warnings
In fact, the FPA made a presentation to BRAC in February 2016, questioning the appropriateness of current BRs and pleading for a review. Let me be absolutely clear – for any fire professional to say that what we saw that morning was a surprise is simply untrue. Many of us were aware of the risk; we had discussed it with government officials, but quite clearly some chose to ignore it. Those in UK commercial insurance knew we
had a problem as, despite the fall in deaths, injuries and fires, the fires were bigger and more serious, warning of trouble ahead. Our presentation resulted from a campaign the FPA and insurers had been running for the previous six months.
26 DECEMBER 2019/JANUARY 2020
www.frmjournal.com
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