According to London’s senior firefighter, the city has gone dangerously close to another Grenfell disaster multiple times since 2017.
Andy Roe called it “unacceptable” that 1,300 buildings in London remain insecure, and he is concerned about what might happen.
He urged building owners to take greater responsibility and improve construction practices as more high-rises are developed.
The commissioner said it will take months to determine what caused the latest high-rise catastrophe in Dagenham, east London, on a block where dangerous cladding was being removed.
Speaking to LBC on Friday at Old Kent Road fire station in south London, the fire chief said: “I’m concerned that unless we straighten out the built environment, that risk of catastrophic building failure and extraordinary accidents remains alive and well in the city.
Whether it was Richmond House, where a block of flats burned down, or a more major fire in Wembley, where cladding was implicated, or Dagenham, where, sure, a lot of the cladding had fallen off, but many other flaws were exposed in that structure. “I understand that I have a big duty to both the residents of London and the hundreds of firefighters who put their lives on the line every day.
That should cause me concern, which is why as a service, we will be persistent in pressing forward the reforms that are still required.” The Grenfell Tower fire in London’s North Kensington killed 72 people in June 2017.
The final assessment on the accident concluded that the fire was the “culmination of decades of failure” by the government and construction industry members.
The long-awaited inquiry’s conclusion last month revealed a “complacent and defensive attitude to fire safety” across government, with ministers regularly failing to act on warnings about the dangers of the combustible cladding.
The report made 34 new suggestions, 13 of which were to fire and rescue services. The London Fire Commissioner stated that his department will accept them all and is already working to implement them. However, Mr Roe again chastised building owners for failing to take responsibility for their residents’ safety.
He stated, “We enforce and inspect [high rises] on a regular basis, but unless building owners take their obligations seriously and proactively attempt to make those buildings safer, it is a major difficulty.
“We need to see an increase in construction and the skills that support it, but we also need to see greater moral behaviour from builders and developers, and it’s apparent that more needs to be done in terms of regulation and ensuring that legislation and guidance operate. “If we make them safer and build them safer, then there will be less reliance on our response in what can be very high risk and extreme circumstances.”
Last month, a big apartment fire at a private block in Dagenham forced the evacuation of 80 inhabitants and the rescue of 20 others using new smoke hoods established by the London Fire Brigade following the first Grenfell report.
The commissioner told LBC that they would have to wait months to find out what ignited it since dangerous cladding was being removed.
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