Dagenham fire provides timely cladding reminder

Residents of a Dagenham tower block that was burned out yesterday had known for at least four years that they were in danger.

The London Fire Brigade was called to the eight-storey Spectrum House on Freshwater Road in Dagenham at 02.44 hours on Monday 26^th August 2024.

It took 40 fire engines and around 225 firefighters more than eight hours to tackle the fire.

More than 80 people were evacuated from the building and at least 20 were rescued by firefighters; two were taken to hospital.

The major incident was stood down at 11.03 hours.

The fire brigade is now investigating both the cause of the fire at Spectrum House and the known safety defects of the building, which were under repair.

London Fire Commissioner Andy Roe said: “The building has a number of fire safety issues known to London Fire Brigade. A full simultaneous evacuation of the building was immediately carried out and a significant search and rescue operation took place.  I am pleased to confirm that everyone has been accounted for.

"We will now begin a full investigation into the fire and its cause. This was a very dynamic and challenging incident, and we know there will undoubtedly be concerns around the fire safety issues present within the building and this will form part of our report.” 

The Spectrum Building began life as the offices of the Dupont chemicals company when it was built in 1974. The property was converted in the 2015 to 60 residential apartments, along with a gym and a nursery.

The current freeholder, Arinium Ltd, took over the freehold in January 2020. The freeholder has no association with the developer, Chadwell Properties.

In September 2020, three and a half years after the June 2017 Grenfell Tower fire – which killed 72 people –  an external wall fire review (EWS1) survey was completed on Spectrum House.

According to evidence given by the Spectrum Resident’s Association to a parliamentary inquiry in February 2022, the EWS1 survey showed that the building did not fully comply with building regulations at the time of build.

“There is a myth, perpetuated by the building industry, that they are also innocent parties because they met regulations at the time of build,” the residents said. “Our building is one of thousands that demonstrate this is untrue. Building control was signed off by JHAI Ltd. As NHBC did not sign off building control, they do not accept any liability.”

While Grenfell Tower’s cladding was aluminium composite material (ACM), the cladding on Spectrum house high-pressure laminate (HPL), as used on Lakanal House, the Camberwell tower block in which six people died in a fire in 2009.

When Spectrum House caught fire this week it was covered in scaffolding and undergoing remediation works, including cladding replacement.

As recently as 19^th August 2024, the supplier of the replacement cladding, Valcan, posted on social media: “We recently popped over to Dagenham to see the progress on Spectrum House. This project consists of remedial work to external cladding to the fifth and sixth floors, removing the non-compliant cladding and replacing with A1 VitraDual compliant cladding, specified by architects GAA Design.

“Installers Fleetwood Architectural Aluminium Ltd have installed around 700 m² of our VitraDual A1 rated cladding panels to this section of the building and are installing our Ceramapanel A1 Painted panels to the balcony privacy screens of vibrant colours including violet, green, orange, blue and yellow.

“We're looking forward to seeing the final works unveiled on this colourful residential building soon.”

They’ll have to wait a bit longer now.

Fire Brigades Union general secretary Matt Wrack said: “Once again, a fire has erupted in a residential building wrapped in flammable cladding. There needs to be an urgent and swift investigation of how this has been allowed to happen.

“Hundreds of thousands of people continue to live in buildings like it, with various failings in fire safety. This is a national scandal.

“For decades, the FBU has warned of the risks of deregulation in the building sector. Politicians have put the interests of big business above human life. As we saw at Grenfell Tower, this can have horrific and tragic consequences.

“We have highlighted significant building safety failings before and since the Grenfell Tower fire. It was already known that the Dagenham tower block was dangerous. Time and time again, these warnings have been ignored by public authorities and by central government. This must change immediately.

“The FBU will continue to demand robust action on building safety, and justice for the victims of these entirely avoidable fires.”

The official inquiry into the Grenfell Tower fire was set up in August 2017, eight weeks after the fire. Between 2001 and 2022 it held more than 300 public hearings and received more than 1,600 witness statements. Since the final hearing in November 2022, inquiry chairman  Sir Martin Moore-Bick has been writing his final report. This is scheduled for publication next week, at 11am on Wednesday 4^th September 2024.

According to latest government data, of the 4,092 buildings identified with unsafe cladding in the wake of the Grenfell Tower fire, 1,815 (44%) have started or completed remediation works, of which 863 (21%) have completed remediation works. This includes remediation progress on high rise (18m+) and mid-rise (11-18m) buildings.

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