Why Did The Grenfell Tower Fire Happen?
Source: Evening Standard, Notting Hill Grenfell Tower Fire in Pictures, Wednesday 14 June 2017. See https://www.standard.co.uk/news/london/london-fire-terrified-residents-jump-from-15th-floor-to-escape-grenfell-tower-inferno-a3564536.html
1 It was a change in Building Control Regulations That Did It
One major contributory reason why this fire happened is because of a money-saving change in the British Building Regulations. You can read about the change in Wikipedia at
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bu...
which says:
“The regulations made under the Act have been periodically updated, rewritten or consolidated, with the latest and current version being the Building Regulations 2010.”
2 And what did these regulations do with deadly effect?
The 2010 Building Control Inspectors Act created a group of “Approved Inspectors” who could agree to the new refurbishment works carried out in a building but who have no power to “have work altered or removed that does not comply” with the Building Regulations. As
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bu... comments
“Local authorities have powers under the Building Act 1984 to enforce the building regulations and have work altered or removed that does not comply. These powers have not been conferred on approved inspectors.”
3 So an entire class of non-local authority private sector “approved inspectors” have been created by the 2010 Act who have the power to examine and agree new and refurbishment work on buildings. But these inspectors can only agree these new works, because they have no power to force compliance with the Building Regulations. They rubber stamp whatever has been built because they have no legal capability to do otherwise.
4 Saving Money But Creating Disasters
These Building Regulation changes have certainly saved some money. There are fewer Building Control Officers in local authorities because building contractors do not need to refer to them for a Completion Certificate on completed works, because they can get an “Approved Inspector” to sign off these works without any danger of that inspector forcing changes to comply with the Building Regulations, because that inspector has no power to do that. So if “Approved inspectors” are used to certify compliance with building regulations, there is no cost of building upgradings to comply with (say) fire escape or fire sprinkler changes or safer cladding to avoid the fire chimney effect.
“Approved Inspectors” do not call themselves “Building Control Officers” because the only power they have is to agree with whatever has been done.
5 The Need To Revise These Regulations: The Solution
The changes in the Building Regulations 2010, no doubt done in the belief that “Building Construction Companies never intend to build unsafe buildings” rapidly need to be revisited to re-introduce the previously universal Local Authority Building Control (LABC) Officer as the final enforcer of legislative compliance in new buildings.
6 The Cost-Benefit Calculations
The saving in reducing LA Building Control Officers and in removing the need for compliance for at least hundreds of recently-constructed or refurbished buildings since 2010 may have saved tens of millions of pounds. The cost of fixing the absence of Building Regulation compliance is probably several billions of pounds.
7 Conclusion
This change in Building Regulations was therefore not a safe, useful or money-saving change and one that needs to be reversed. Perhaps the Public Enquiry could bring that about.