Quintain have issued the following statement in response to enquiries about the safety of its high rise development in Wembley Park:
We take our health & safety obligations at Wembley Park extremely seriously and were deeply saddened to witness the terrible events at Grenfell Tower. We are building a large scale mixed use development and with that comes a responsibility to ensure the safety of all the workers, visitors and residents at Wembley Park.
All of our residential buildings are new build. None of our residential buildings are refurbishments and each building has a fire safety strategy that has been developed in conjunction with a leading fire specialist, Jeremy Gardner Associates, who we have worked with for over 10 years.All of our buildings are fully compliant with building regulations and their designs were approved by both the London Borough of Brent Building Control and The London Fire Brigade.We have used high quality building materials throughout our development at Wembley Park and as the owners of the 85 acre estate we have professional onsite management, including regular building inspections, fire risk assessment by independent professional fire risk assessors and tenant liaison.
'each building has a fire safety strategy that has been developed in conjunction with a leading fire specialist, Jeremy Gardner Associates, who we have worked with for over 10 years.'
ReplyDeleteCondemned out of their own mouths. Any independent input here where profit does not come into the relationship? This is precisely the privatised, outsourced approach which proved fatal at Grenfell. Do the PR smoothies at Quintain think nobody reads the papers or social media?
'We take our health & safety obligations at Wembley Park extremely seriously'. And I'm sure that 'keeping the image of your Quintain as clean as possible is at the heart of all that we do'.
Might be more believable if it wasn't the usual robotic PR speak, Tristram.
Mike Hine
I just sincerely hope that Quintain's complacent words never come back to haunt them or anyone else. The horror of Grenfell Tower must never be allowed to happen again.
ReplyDeleteMy now former landlord placed great emphasis on regular fire alarm testing, even to the point of disrupting the sleep of a cancer patient through the testers' lack of warning.
ReplyDeleteAnd today's Camden New Journal reports that the cladding of LB Camden tower blocks is to be removed on account of similarities with that used at Grenfell Tower. Exclusive: Cladding to be removed from Camden blocks after tests reveal similarities with Grenfell Tower
Alan Wheatley
http://www.jgafire.com/fire-engineering
ReplyDeleteWHAT IS FIRE ENGINEERING?
Fire safety engineering, in its simplest terms, is about ensuring that people have enough time to escape from a building when there is a fire. To do this, we analyse the events that take place between a fire starting and occupants reaching a place of safety. Each fire engineering solution is specific to the building, and an assessment may include an analysis of:
Occupant characteristics
Smoke detector and sprinkler response times
Fire growth rates, smoke production and the time taken for a room to fill with smoke.
Time taken for occupants to reach an exit.
We often use advanced computer modelling programmes to support our analysis. A fire engineering solution can help our clients to resolve any number of issues, from a minor increase in escape distances to developing the escape strategy for an entire shopping centre.
CODE COMPLIANCE VS. FIRE ENGINEERING
Traditionally buildings are designed to comply with standard fire codes. Even today this can be the best way to deal with a simple building.
For a larger, more complex building the standard codes will usually severely restrict the architects design freedom.
It may even result in a standard of safety that is lower than would be achieved using a fire engineering approach.
Where standard fire code guidance works using a ‘one size fits all’ solution, fire engineering takes account of factors such as human behaviour and the geometry of the specific building to provide a solution tailored to that project.
Many of the projects we have worked on over the last 21 years could not have been built to the project team’s vision without the use of fire engineering. Our Clients know that the work we carry out will give them a building that is both safe and designed to maximise efficiency and flexibility for use.
We are an independent consultancy and our experience and reputation means that the Approving Authorities know that they can rely on our expertise. Our tireless dedication to providing our Clients with the best possible solutions for their building has made us a leader in our field. Our technical work is the foundation to all of this.
FIRE AND SMOKE MODELLING
Much of our fire engineering analysis is supported by use of the most advanced computer modelling programmes.
We regularly use computational fluid dynamics (CFD) smoke modelling and the latest evacuation modelling programmes to understand and solve the challenges of a building performance in a fire.
We have also developed a range of our own fire and smoke modelling programs.
Just read between the lines!!! Mike Hines, gets it. and so should we.