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Southwark council faced serious questions over the Camberwell fire today after it emerged its
tower blocks breached statutory fire regulations.
London Fire and Emergency Planning Authority has secretly served enforcement notices around the borough, ordering it to immediately install better safety measures, the Standard has learned.
The new legal orders call on Southwark to make a string of changes to three council blocks, including the neighbouring block to Lakanal House, the site of the devastating fire that killed six people, including three children, last month.
The council has been told the buildings failed to comply with the 2006 Regulatory Reform Fire Safety Order and told to reassess fire doors, escape routes and fire-resistant materials.
The emergency authority is demanding “a range of modifications to the ceilings in corridors and the external walls of flats, so that they resist the passage of fire gasses, heat and smoke”. Critics say the fire may have spread rapidly due to air gaps caused by false ceilings installed in a refurbishment.
The Standard has also been told that Southwark has failed to provide a document showing that they carried out an adequate statutory fire risk assessment for Lakanal House itself, a claim that will put huge political pressure on the authority amid demands for a public inquiry.
One insider said if the council was found to have failed to carry out its legal duties, the affair would become “Southwark's equivalent of the Baby P scandal”. The Lib-Dem and Tory coalition in charge of the borough would face huge embarrassment and council officers could face disciplinary action, the source added.
The blaze that swept through the Fifties tower block killed three-week-old Michelle Udoaka, her mother Helen, designer Catherine Hickman, Dayana Francisquini and her children Felipe, three, and Thais, six. Cabinet minister and local MP Harriet Harman has called for a joint inquest into all six deaths.
Critics claim the council's refurbishments to Lakanal House and neighbouring Marie Curie House in 2005 failed to carry out an adequate fire risk assessment since new rules in 2006 put the onus on town halls to work out dangers in their blocks.
The council refused to comment on the Lakanal House risk assessment while the police investigation into the fire continues. A preliminary probe found a portable TV set caused the blaze but there are still questions as to why it spread to several floors.
Southwark has said it is considering demolishing Lakanal House but residents in Marie Curie House, which is of identical design, are demanding reassurances their homes are safe.
The emergency authority's enforcement orders demand changes to Marie Curie House, Perronet House in Princess Street and Castlemead in Camberwell Road. If the council fails to comply, it faces criminal sanctions.
Reader views (8)
Donald of Palmers Green is so right. The Irvine fire in 1999 involved one person who was wheelchair bound but due to the outcry the Council actually removed UVPC windows from their tower blocks. The fire was subject to a parliamentary committee report. It seems some of the lessons were forgotten. The loss of life in Southwark will not be for nothing. There will be an inquiry and things will change I am sure of it.
- Jack Spratt, Richmond, Surrey, 12/08/2009 13:12
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Out of the frying pan and into the fire is what's happening at Perronet House, if you'll excuse my muddled metaphor. The 'fire' here is now asbestos poisoning compared with the 'frying pan' of a real fire risk. I live in Perronet House and bumped into the fire safety inspectors and Southwark Council's John Bryan a few weeks ago in the building. Incredibly, despite my previous warnings about damaged asbestos ceiling tiles in our communal corridor, the team decided to hack into them 'to inspect the fire risk' and took none of the necessary legal precautions to contain the carcinogenic dust or dispose of the material safely (as I'd had to do last year when removing the poisonous material from my flat). My neighbour overheard them whispering that "we better not throw any more down the communal waste chute" (so they knew the risk, even to themselves!) and they tried to dismiss my subsequent written concerns about the risk by diverting the conversation to one about fire escapes. I've complained and got the usual brush off from their housing department. The problem here is that a big blazing fire is much easier to spot than a lung cancer hot spot. As for improvements, these amount to one letter from Margaret O'Brien, Head of Housing saying we'd be told more, and that amounted to a standard fire safety. Southwark Council's officers are not just negligent, they're knowingly reckless.
- Richard Reynolds, Perronet House, Princess Street, 12/08/2009 11:54
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What more could you expect from Southwark Council, they are totally incompetent at everything they seem to do, or should I say not do.
For instance call up to ask the price of a bin for a block of flats, for a year.
The answer you get is, someone will call you back.......in about 5/7 days, yes it takes them that long to answer a simple question.
Call them and ask to speak to someone about a noisy neighbour you had over the weekend, and you get a refernece number and are told someone will call you back in 5/7 days, I'm still waiting after 2 weeks.
Call them to say a pub near where you live opens later than legally allowed, yes you guessded right, you get a refernce number and are promised a call back iwithin 3 working days.
Surprise surprise, you don't get a call back, so scream down the phone and demand to speak to the licensing section, who tell you.....the reference numbers they give out are on a different system.
The list goes on and on with them, if they can't manage basic tasks, how can they manage blocks of flats which are obvious to anyone that they are fire hazards.
- P Staker, London, 12/08/2009 11:18
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Jack Spratt , Richmond, asks "Why should 32 London Boroughs employ "experts" to assess fire precautions when it could be done by a central body i.e. the Fire Brigade more efficiently". When Lakanal House was built in 1959 the duty crews from the local Southwark fire station would have actually regularly checked out the buildings and tested each of the fire hydrants on their "patch" or "ground" and had prior detailed knowledge of the risks and a risk assessment. But in chasing "efficiency" and "cost reduction" this "learning" & fire prevention enforcement work was first centralised and then devolved. It is never who does but who pays! When there is a fatality or two in a high profile situation [such as after the Irvine,Glasgow high-rise fatal fire in 1999] there is an immediate political outcry but the initial momentum loses focus when it comes to spending the necessary money and there are local council tax reduction targets to meet if the matter concerned becomes out-of-sight and out-of-mind. In the present high profile Camberwell case with Lakanal House ; Southwark's own GLA Assembly Member, Valerie Shawcross is actually on the LFEPA and will want to learn the lessons for other residents in London.But safety only comes with the landlords spending on upgrade work & ever-vigilance and involvement of residents
- Donald Smith, Palmers Green, 12/08/2009 11:10
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So the Council's "elf and safety" stasi while leaving no stone unturned with the draconian rules and regulations they inflict on everyone else, do not seem to have left any time to deal with the shortcomings in their own housing stock. They should be prosecuted.
- Patricia, LONDON, 12/08/2009 10:32
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Southwark council is very hot on issuing parking tickets if you overstay for a couple of minutes on a parking meter. It seems they may have their priorities wrong.Six people were killed in this fire.
- Paul, London UK, 12/08/2009 10:27
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Do not the fire services check blocks of flats and other large buildings on a regular basis? When was the last check done on these buildings?
- Adrian, London, 12/08/2009 10:23
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Not much use serving these legal notices after the event. This fire shows that the legislation is faulty. Why should 32 london Boroughs employ "experts" to assess fire precautions when it could be done by a central body i.e. the Fire brigade more efficiently. The photograph to your story is most alarming, it shows the fire in one flat had literally burnt itself out whilst the fire in flats above rages out of control. There must be a full chronology published showing just what was done on a minute by minute basis from the first telephone call.
- Jack Spratt, Richmond, Surrey, 12/08/2009 09:35
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