Saturday 24 June 2017

Brent Council statement on high-rise blocks safety

Brent Council has posted the following statement on its website LINK:

High-rise safety in council blocks

Many residents living in high-rise blocks across the country will naturally be concerned so within Brent, the council and Brent Housing Partnership (BHP) have moved quickly to do extra checks and double checks of our high-rise blocks so that we are able to provide our residents with the reassurances they deserve. In Brent the facts are:
  • We have 37 high-rise blocks in Brent and all 37 are 100% fire risk assessment compliant.
  • We have never used Rydon Limited or Harley Facades Limited, the contractors who worked on Grenfell Tower, anywhere in Brent.
  • Estate inspectors and compliance experts have visited all 37 high rise blocks, including communal areas and exit routes to remove any remaining rubbish, bicycles and other hazards which could hinder access and exit in an emergency.
  • More than £10million has been spent over the past 4 years on measures to reduce the risk of fires in council run properties across the borough.
For details on all 37 high-rise blocks in Brent and the status of each of their fire risk assessments, please check the fire safety information here. [Ed: when I last accessed it this doesn't include Quintain development in Wembley or Octavia's Elizabeth House in Wembley High Road]

Council blocks with cladding

One high-rise block, Watling Gardens, has cladding. However, the cladding used is completely different to the cladding used at Grenfell Tower. We have double checked and the cladding is a non-combustible mineral wool material that would not promote the spread of flames externally and is in compliance with current British standards. However, we are not taking anything for granted and will also be commissioning our own independent checks on the cladding as well and report the results of this to residents in Watling Gardens as soon as possible.

Registered housing providers – high rise blocks

Aside from the assessments we have been carrying out across the Council’s own housing stock, we have also been in contact with all registered housing providers in Brent to ensure that the same thorough assessments are being carried out on their buildings as a matter of urgency, specifically on high-rise and cladded buildings. We have also asked them to communicate with residents to provide them with reassurance regarding their homes.

The list of registered providers in Brent is as follows: Family Mosaic, Notting Hill Housing, Hyde Housing, Genesis, Innisfree, JL Living, Catalyst, Metropolitan, Network Homes, Octavia, Origin Housing, Homegroup and L&Q Group. We will provide links to updates on this web page when they become available.

Private housing – high rise blocks

In terms of other private buildings and properties across the Borough, the main developer in Brent is Quintain who we contacted shortly after the Grenfell fire and they have confirmed that all of their new build residential blocks meet fire safety standards. We are waiting to hear back from other private developers in Brent and will provide links to updates on this page as they become available.

The council, as a planning authority, is not involved in assessing planning applications against fire safety as this is covered by other Government legislation, in this case, Building Control regulations. When a developer is building, they can choose whether to use the Council as building inspectors, or an accredited inspector. If they choose the latter, the council is not responsible for oversight of the work.

The council regularly reviews its fire risk assessments, servicing and maintenance programmes in all accommodation blocks and will continue to do so to ensure our residents are always kept safe. Once the findings from the Government’s emergency review into fire safety in tower blocks are known we will of-course review and, if needed, amend our fire management processes and strategy as a matter of urgency.

8 comments:

Meg Howarth said...

Re Registered Housing Providers, above -

Brent cllrs should note that Hyde Housing is intimately involved in the Chalcots Estate (PFI - private finance initiative) refurbishment: it's part of Partners (for Improvement in) Camden, the consortium behind the refurb

http://www.partnershipsbulletin.com/projects/view/5467 (scroll down to last entry).

Hyde is also 1/4 of PFI Partners...Islington which in turn has the same Project Director as Partners...Camden

https://beta.companieshouse.gov.uk/company/04628357/officers

https://beta.companieshouse.gov.uk/company/04200933/officers

'Oh what a tangled web [they] weave...'





Anonymous said...

Bring it all back in-house, Butt. Train qualified, independent people up in a social standards ethos. Nobody trusts the other bastards anymore.(Who knows, you might even regain a little trust yourself).

Mike Hine

Lrg said...

How high does a building have to be to count as a high rise block? Even lower rise could have problems. There are also presumably non residential buildings that could be affected?

Unknown said...

If fire assessments are carried out yearly, and they have all been done recently, The Grenfell disaster happened on 14th June, so I would expect that if Brent Council had recently done thorough checks on all 37 blocks in Brent, why does most of them show that the next fire assessments will be carried out in March, April, May of 2018 as the record shows. Why have they not all been updated to show dates after 14th June???? Why have the recent reports not been published in full? Details? of what they found, risks etc, and remedys?

Anonymous said...

http://news.sky.com/story/sadiq-khan-we-cant-play-russian-roulette-with-fire-safety-10926865

This suggests otherwise.

Anonymous said...

Grenfel met 'fire safety standards' - what standards does Quintain actually meet?

Unknown said...

If fire assessments are carried out yearly, and they have all been done recently, The Grenfell disaster happened on 14th June, so I would expect that if Brent Council had recently done thorough checks on all 37 blocks in Brent, why does most of them show that the next fire assessments will be carried out in March, April, May of 2018 as the record shows. Why have they not all been updated to show dates after 14th June???? Why have the recent reports not been published in full? Details? of what they found, risks etc, and remedys?

Anonymous said...

What about the huge students' hall opposite Wembley Park tube station?