Agenda item

Resolved: that the report be noted. The Committee also agreed that it would write to the Chair of the London Fire and Emergency Planning Authority to encourage the commissioning of a public information campaign about fire safety. In addition, the Committee agreed that it would share its views with Mayor and Cabinet as follows:

·         The Committee welcomes officers’ report on fire safety in tall buildings. The Committee recommends that there be an ongoing commitment to full openness and clarity regarding the fire safety work taking place in the borough.

·         The Committee requests that a publicly available list of all tall buildings in the borough be produced for ease of reference. This should contain a summary of fire safety activities, that can be cross checked against each building, with the action taken and assurances provided to date. This would include, for example, dates on key building control actions, whether private or council, fire safety inspections, LFB inspections, cladding checked or not etc.

·         Officers have agreed to provide additional information about the Council’s responsibility for buildings for which it has provided building control services. The checklist for buildings (requested above) would need to include actions taken by officers to meet all building control requirements in those buildings. This information should also be provided to the fire service.

·         The Committee is concerned about the complex technical nature of some of the materials and machinery being used in new developments. The Committee therefore recommends that officers be tasked with considering what expert advice the appropriate Council Committees need when making decisions in relation to new developments.

4.1    Kevin Sheehan (Executive Director for Customer Services) introduced the report. The following key points were noted:

·         The report provided a comprehensive update of work that had taken place to date.

·         Three blocks of housing in Lewisham (Hatfield Close (two blocks) and Gerrard House) had been identified for remedial work.

·         It was hoped that contactors would be in place next week to remove and replace the cladding on these blocks, consideration would also be given to installing sprinkler systems in these buildings.

·         The only other group blocks managed by registered providers which were of concern were in Clive Terrace in Forest Hill (managed by London and Quadrant Housing).

·         In terms of none social housing stock – responses had been received from all owners or managers of tall buildings in Lewisham, except Aragon Tower, which was still outstanding.

·         None of the blocks in the borough, that had been assessed, had aluminium composite material (ACM) cladding.

·         Almost all owners of tall buildings in the borough were working with the Council to carry out additional checks and safety measures.

·         The list of tall buildings in the borough had been given to the borough commander – who had developed a programme to visit each of the high rise buildings with landlords to perform assessments.

·         The newest buildings in the borough met the relevant fire safety standards and it was positive that none of them had ACM cladding.

4.2    Kevin Sheehan, Janet Senior (Executive Director for Resources and Regeneration) and Freddie Murray (Service Group Manager, Asset Strategy and Technical Support) responded to questions from the Committee. The following key points were noted:

·         For those buildings that the Council had carried out the building control approvals on, there was information about the materials used for construction. This had been checked by officers and there were no issues identified.

·         For those buildings that the Council had not carried out the building control on, information would be sought from developers.

·         There was a limit to how much the Council could do to push private developers. Once owners had given reassurance that inspections were in place, that they had done their risk assessments and they had been engaged with the fire brigade, that was the point at which the Council would recognise that the owner of the building had taken responsibility

·         If there were particular complaints about a building from tenants, there were interventions the Council could make, though these complaints would have to be fairly consistent and detailed before action could be taken.

·         The Council had been in touch with all owners or managers or tall buildings in the borough.

·         There were named, responsible officers for each development who were accountable for health and safety and fire regulations in their own building.

·         It was the responsibility of owners and responsible officers to satisfy the fire brigade that they were doing what they should be doing and that the systems that should be in place were in place.

·         The Council had asked for reassurance that the appropriate systems were in place.

·         The fire brigade would inform the Council of anything that they were concerned about regarding tall residential buildings.

·         The Council did not have many powers or duties in relation to private blocks.

·         The fire brigade had relationships with developers or agents managing buildings to assure fire safety.

·         The Council did not have the power or the duty to give agencies managing private blocks a ‘clean bill of health’ regarding their responsibilities.

·         The Council could seek reassurance from private developers and managing agents that they were doing the things they should be doing.

·         For registered social landlords the regulator (the homes and communities agency) was responsible for overseeing compliance.

·         In the Council’s own stock – it could ensure that all the relevant risk assessments were in place and that the any issues discovered as a result of inspections were dealt with.

·         If the Council was notified that there had been an error or failure in the application or sign off of a building control approval then it had powers to assure that a remedy was made.

·         The Council had limited powers to compel private developers to act – so it had to build influence with partners to act.

·         Private developers could have their own building control sign off for their developments. This was likely to be one of the issues considered as part of the Government’s inquiry.

·         All Lewisham schools had been checked as part of the recent work on fire safety. Once school had cladding on it, which found not to be ACM. The Council had written to all schools about updating their fire risk assessments.

·         Officers had also been in contact with Lewisham Hospital about fire safety in its buildings.

·         The health and safety risk assessments were being updated for all Council buildings.

·         There was cladding on Eros House, officers would confirm whether or not this was ACM.

·         Officers would check with Goldsmiths University about the safety in its halls of residence.

·         The starting point for the recent fire safety work was tall buildings with cladding, which had a strong residential component, without 24 hour security arrangements. These were the highest risk buildings.

·         Residential tall buildings were risky because they had families sleeping in them and most did not have 24 hour security services.

·         Most non-residential buildings had plans for evacuation.

·         The message for tall residential buildings was for residents to ‘stay put’ in the event of a fire.

·         It was not easy to answer to questions about the potential for unaccounted for people living in residential buildings.

·         There was not a mechanism for tracking who was and was not in any residential building at a given time.

·         The Council knew who lived in each of its buildings – but it could not account for their location at any time of the day or night.

·         A system to track residents’ movements was likely to be intrusive.

·         Costs for the replacement of cladding in Lewisham buildings had not yet been finalised but it was likely to cost millions of pounds.

·         The Mayor had written to the secretary of state to request additional funding to cover the costs.

4.3    In the Committee’s discussion the following key points were also noted:

·         One of the key issues in many disasters was not that the systems to prevent or control risk were not in place – but that issues had slipped through the system on some level.

·         It was important that the Council had robust systems in place to prevent issues being missed or overlooked.

·         The outcome of the inquiry into the Grenfell tower disaster might lead to the tightening up of regulations and closer scrutiny of the techniques and systems used by developers to stretch the regulations.

·         Councillors would be asking more questions about the quality and delivery of new developments.

·         A public information campaign was required to ensure that residents were aware of the measures they could take to manage the fire risks in their households. This should include a particular focus on the safety of electrical items and might include proactive work in schools.

·         There was a potential lack of in house expertise and experience to assess some of the complex equipment (including new heating and energy machinery) in new developments.

·         There were examples where in house experts working for developers had mitigated down building planning regulations.

4.4    Resolved: that the report be noted. The Committee also agreed that it would write to the Chair of the London Fire and Emergency Planning Authority to encourage the commissioning of a public information campaign about fire safety. In addition, the Committee agreed that it would share its views with Mayor and Cabinet as follows:

·         The Committee welcomes officers’ report on fire safety in tall buildings. The Committee recommends that there be an ongoing commitment to full openness and clarity regarding the fire safety work taking place in the borough.

·         The Committee requests that a publicly available list of all tall buildings in the borough be produced for ease of reference. This should contain a summary of fire safety activities, that can be cross checked against each building, with the action taken and assurances provided to date. This would include, for example, dates on key building control actions, whether private or council, fire safety inspections, LFB inspections, cladding checked or not etc.

·         Officers have agreed to provide additional information about the Council’s responsibility for buildings for which it has provided building control services. The checklist for buildings (requested above) would need to include actions taken by officers to meet all building control requirements in those buildings. This information should also be provided to the fire service.

·         The Committee is concerned about the complex technical nature of some of the materials and machinery being used in new developments. The Committee therefore recommends that officers be tasked with considering what expert advice the appropriate Council Committees need when making decisions in relation to new developments.