Article Pub: Grenfell Tower: Kensington and Chelsea council considering replacing 4,000 sub-standard fire doors

The London borough where the Grenfell tragedy took place will discuss whether to replace around 4,000 doors with ones which are properly fire-resistant, following the publication of a highly critical report on the council’s response in the aftermath of the fire.

It emerged that an undamaged door from the Grenfell tower block could only withstand a blaze for 15 minutes, not the 30 for which it was designed, following testing.

Doors on local authority homes must be fire-resistant for 30 minutes in order to satisfy regulations.

The Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea said the doors it has proposed to replace are “not necessarily deficient” in terms of fire risk assessments since “it is not currently a legislative requirement”.

The announcement follows the release of a new report that found the institutional response to the disaster was “badly flawed” in the first crucial days.

The voluntary sector was “very much on the front line”, due to the void left by a lack of official direction in the wake of the Grenfell Tower fire, the report found.

“The consequences of the disaster were compounded by the weak leadership of the response initially led by the local council, which was slow to provide direction, coordination and information and to address multiple pressing needs,” the report, commissioned by the charity Muslim Aid, said.

At the Grenfell Tower inquiry on Tuesday, survivors lamented the fire brigade’s advice to stay inside, which discouraged many families from fleeing.

A group of Grenfell Tower residents claim that the “stay put” advice, that was pursued until two hours after the fire broke out, cost residents lives.

It has since emerged that the London fire brigade told the owners of 101 tower blocks over 18 meters tall to evacuate if a fire breaks out.

In an interview on the Today programme on BBC Radio 4 on Wednesday, one of the firefighters who fought the blaze and rescued nine people said that “in 26 years of being a firefighter it was the biggest fire I’d scene and dealt with.”

“Fires don’t spread like that did,” Aldo Diana said, explaining why a policy of containment was pursued in the first instance, rather than immediately evacuating the building. “We did what we could that night and worked as hard as we could.”

“I’ve been in tower block fires before and this was totally different to any I’ve been in. Normally its contained in the one flat it starts in, “ he said. “But never in my [experience] has it spread like this.”

Although the London fire brigade has come in for criticism for their initial approach, the individual heroism of firefighters has been much lauded and they have played a role in many community events in the 11 months since the fire.

The report also found that, despite their lack of experience of UK disaster situations, local organisations worked effectively in the immediate and longer-term response phases.

“In the first few chaotic days and weeks, there were examples of timely, effective action, much of it from local organisations with no experience or training in emergency response, complemented at times by key expertise from outside,” it said.

Muslim Aid’s chief executive, Jehangir Malik, who was on the ground coordinating volunteers responding to the plight of those affected by the disaster, paid tribute to “the spirit of humanitarian action” which crucially “filled the void where there was a lack of official direction, coordination and information.”

“I would have expected this chaos in a developing country, because almost always there is poor infrastructure,” he said. “I honestly thought we had better disaster preparedness and response systems here in the UK.

“We are now asking for lessons to be learned and for greater coordination of the voluntary organisations with local authorities, including as part of national emergency response structures.”

The report said it would be easy to dismiss Grenfell as “a one-off, compounded by the failings of a particularly flawed local authority”, but it warned there are aspects that could play out again “at a time when the frequency of disasters in the UK is likely to increase due to climate change, vulnerability to terror attacks and the inherent risks of life in crowded, unequal cities”.

Due to many consequences of the fire still being unresolved – with dozens of families still living in hotels – the report recognised that “it is vital that future action is informed by what has been learnt from the response so far”.

“This applies both to working with the people of North Kensington to address their needs, and shaping wider thinking and practice in emergency preparedness, response and resilience, in London and the rest of the UK,” the report said.

“The Grenfell Tower disaster must be a wake-up call to those in a position to effect change and find 21st century solutions to 21st century challenges”.

The report recommended that, in a major disaster, local secular and faith organisations can draw on their “local rootedness” to act quickly and sensitively in line with the needs of communities they understand.

This capability needs to be better appreciated and supported, including in partnership with local authorities and national actors with expertise in emergency response, the report concluded.

A spokesman for Kensington and Chelsea Council said: “It is not right for the council to comment in detail at this stage – this is a matter for the public inquiry which is reviewing the events around the council’s response to the tragedy.

“It is our responsibility to ensure that the whole, unvarnished truth is told so that lessons can be learned and to ensure that such a tragedy can never happen again.

Local councillors are due to meet on 6 June to consider the replacement of fire doors in its social housing blocks across the borough to bring them into line with the type used across the country.

It would cost around £3.5m to replace all of the doors, just a fraction of the £274m of reserves the council has stockpiled.

Reuse content