Grenfell Tower and Others

As soon as it was reported which cladding product had been used on Grenfell Tower I read up on the stuff. For those who don't do that sort of thing and are currently mystified by the various reports following ongoing surveys of other clad blocks I clarify as follows.

Aluminium Composite Material (ACM) is just two sheets of aluminium bonded to a core of another material. What makes a panel suitable or not for a given application is what the core is made of.

Harley Facades, subcontracted to Rydon, are reported to have fitted products from Reynobond, who clearly state in their literature that their ACM panels come with either polyethylene (PE) or fire retardant (FR) cores and the provided illustrations show panels used primarily as fascias on shopping malls or low-rise office buildings.

If the reports are correct and Reynobond PE has been fitted to a block of dwellings with a roof in excess of 18 metres in height, the point at which the regulations relating to the control of the spread of fire across external walls changes, quite a number of people are directly responsible for a fire in a single flat having spread such that it had the disastrous consequences we are all aware of.

Without sight of all the contract documents and communications relating to the project neither I nor anyone else can say how far up the chain of command the awareness went of the panels being fitted not satisfying regulations.

I can say, however, that a legal precedent exists for everybody down to the team that fitted them to be accountable when failing to achieve fitness for purpose has health and safety implications, of which this fire was an extreme example.

Any competent cladding installer should know the building regulations pertaining to their trade and know that Reynobond PE panels are not appropriate for tower blocks like Grenfell and should refuse to install them.

Of course, before it gets to that stage, any competent specialist subcontractor should refuse to provide a price for works that contravene regulations and, anyway, no competent main contractor should ever request or accept one.

All those who can reasonably be expected to have known the material to be used was inappropriate have been negligent in failing to stop the works and prevent the installation of a life-threatening fire hazard. Any person not directly connected to the works but who had suitable knowledge or experience to notice the danger and did so in passing without subsequently insisting the works be stopped is included in this group.

Note it is enormously unlikely that a complete block of flats would be clad so quickly that the identifying marks on the reverse of every panel and on their packaging would have been hidden from view before any competent person engaged to inspect or oversee the ongoing works had had a chance to see them, recognise the unsuitability of the panels and stop those works.

Contrary to the impression given by many voicing their protest on social networks and in the streets, the members of the councils and associations who engage contractors to refurbish blocks of flats for which they are responsible are the least likely people to have the specialist knowledge to recognise a material as not fit for purpose on their projects, the least likely to have knowingly placed their tenants at risk.

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It is reported that emergency checks of the cladding on similar buildings throughout the country following the Grenfell Tower fire have found the same PE cored panels have been inappropriately fitted to other blocks by the same specialists under subcontract to the same main contractor engaged by different clients.

I expect there will be found at the end of an enormously long and expensive investigation a large number of people employed by both the specialist subcontractor and the main contractor were complicit in the willful and repeated carrying out of substandard works to blocks of high-rise social housing.

A lot of those people will claim that they were only following orders and they feared losing their jobs had they been obstructive. I don't care. If you want to yell and scream at someone, yell and scream at the people who actually installed the cladding. Nothing can justify participating in the turning of a tower block into a flaming torch. 

The Digital Despot

It has long been the case that any common-goal movement comprising humans will fractionate over time. In the olden days this would happen after the common goal had been achieved, when petty squabbles took the place of the new-found boredom. The principal effect of social media in particular is to accelerate the process such that the fractionation happens way before anything useful gets done.

Some of the problem arises from the plethora of available movements to digitally support. In the olden days you had to get off your arse and write letters, attend meetings, rallies and events to be part of something. Now people seem to think clicking "Like" on a Facebook page adds weight to anything. It plainly doesn't.

Imagine you are despot who feels the need for a Personal Guard of hand-picked and handsomely paid elite soldiers at your side to make you look 'ard. Imagine you oppress a million people and they start getting umpty. If every single one of them slagged you off on Facebook and Twitter you wouldn't be upset. But if just one in a hundred of them got off their arses, got together and turned up on your doorstep looking for you you would brick yourself.

So the digital despot simply diverts a few currency units from the Personal Guard budget across to the Social Network Unit. It is much more efficient and a lot safer to disrupt or distract discussions online than it is to stand up in an assembly hall full of militants waving a cat picture or suggesting that another cause is of greater worth than the one everyone just gave up their evening to support.

The few who can remain focussed on the big picture and who see but are not distracted by its intricate detail will still achieve change.

[2nd June 2014]