Workers remove cladding from Whitebeam Court, in Pendleton, Manchester. Photo / AP
Workers remove cladding from Whitebeam Court, in Pendleton, Manchester. Photo / AP
By Griff Witte, Karla Adam
Britain today confronted a rapidly growing fire safety crisis after tests of the exterior cladding on dozens of public housing towers revealed a 100 per cent failure rate, raising fears that this month's deadly inferno in London could be replicated elsewhere.
Out of 75 high-rise buildings tested since last week, communities minister Sajid Javid told Parliament today, not one passed. That's up from 60 failures out of 60 yesterday - with hundreds more towers yet to be examined.
Javid said the Government will immediately expand testing to include schools, hospitals and private residential buildings - suggesting that the scope of the problem could be far beyond what was suspected even days ago.
The revelations came less than two weeks after London's 24-storey Grenfell Tower was transformed from a home for hundreds into a charred ruin - and a death trap for at least 79 people.
At the time, officials described it as a horrific anomaly - an "unprecedented" blaze, in the words of the city's fire commissioner, the likes of which had not been seen in modern Britain.
But after the dozens of failed safety inspections and the hurried evacuation of thousands of public housing residents, Grenfell is looking like something else entirely: a dire warning.
Critics say that far from being an isolated case, the blaze is symptomatic of a loose regulatory system that allowed as many as 600 towers to be encased in a material that helps spread flames, rather than stop them.
And the problems may not end with residential high-rises.
"This is massive. This is only the tip of the iceberg," said Arnold Tarling, a British surveyor and fire safety expert. Cladding is not just on high-rise apartments, "but on schools, leisure centres, hospitals, office blocks, hotels - you name it."
He added: "My view is: Assume it doesn't work."
For the cash-strapped local councils that manage the public housing buildings - and for the tens of thousands of residents who live in them - the dismal test results have brought an agonising choice: evacuate without a plan for where people should go next, or allow them to stay and risk another Grenfell.
"Everyone is absolutely terrified," said Kathleen Hughes, who cares for her husband, an Alzheimer's patient, on the seventh floor of a north London high-rise that is wrapped in cladding similar to the kind that has been linked to Grenfell. "There are a lot of children on that top floor. We have one staircase."
Her building has not been evacuated, and she said that despite her fears, she hopes it won't be. "I'm 75 for God's sake," she said. "I don't need all of this on top of what I got."
For the British Government, rapidly growing evidence of the true scale of the problem has brought a different kind of question, but one that's no less difficult: Why was a type of cladding that was long restricted on high-rises in the United States and continental Europe permitted to be used on towers in Britain?
The maker of the cladding tiles - the US-based successor to metals giant Alcoa, which is now known as Arconic - said today it was pulling the product worldwide from use on tall buildings.
"We believe this is the right decision because of the inconsistency of building codes across the world and issues that have arisen in the wake of the Grenfell Tower tragedy," the firm said.
One of the lowest apartments which is gutted by fire in the burnt Grenfell Tower apartment building. Photo / AP
The type of cladding - known as Reynobond PE - has sheets of aluminum surrounding a flammable plastic core. It's cheaper than a fire-resistant version, also sold by Arconic, that has metal in place of the plastic.
British investigators have said the Grenfell blaze began when a fridge in a fourth-floor apartment caught fire. The blaze rapidly climbed the building's exterior, using the cladding and insulation as fuel. The building was engulfed in flames within minutes, and it burned for days.
The British Government said last week that as many as 600 high-rise buildings have cladding, and need to be tested. But so far, only a fraction have been, prompting the government to blame local authorities for the delays.
"I am concerned about the speed at which samples are being submitted," said Javid, the Communities Secretary. "I would urge all landlords to submit their samples immediately."
Javid said private landlords should also send in samples for the government to test, and that hospitals and schools would also be examined. Until today, the tests were focused exclusively on public housing.
The revelation that potentially dangerous materials were so widely used has triggered recriminations, especially given that the dangers had been known.
As recently as May, the Association of British Insurers issued the Government a warning about the risks posed by flammable cladding, particularly the potential for it "to cause fire to spread upwards uncontrollably".
Investigators have said they are considering manslaughter charges, although they have not said whom they might charge.
John McDonnell, a senior figure in the Opposition Labour Party, has said Grenfell's victims "were murdered by political decisions that were taken over recent decades".
Another Labour MP, Karen Buck, called the repeated fire safety test failures evidence that what started at Grenfell is "turning into a national emergency".
"The tragedy of Grenfell Tower exposes the over-stretched state of social housing, especially in London," Buck, who used to represent the area where Grenfell is located, wrote in a piece for the Guardian.
The crunch in local housing budgets and space has not only left communities with potentially hazardous buildings. It has also complicated decision-making over what to do with residents who live in them, and who may need to be housed elsewhere while the dangerous cladding is removed.
