Glasgow City Council could provide ‘clarity’ over combustible cladding by Friday

Scotland's largest local authority should know by Friday if any of the high rise flats in its area have a “Grenfell type arrangement'' of combustible cladding, MSPs have been told.

A week ago it emerged that 57 privately owned high rise properties in the Glasgow City Council area could have similar cladding to that on the London tower block, which was destroyed by a massive inferno claiming an estimated 80 lives.

On Wednesday, MSPs were told the local authority should be able to provide the “clarity'' required on the nature and extent of the cladding on these buildings by the end of this week.

Staff from the Scottish Government went to Glasgow Council yesterday to help officials there provide the necessary information, Holyrood's Housing Minister said.

Kevin Stewart added: “Glasgow City Council have a responsibility to residents to progress this work as a matter of urgency.''

MSPs on the Scottish Parliament's Local Government Committee had heard last week from a senior official on the council that a search in the aftermath of the Grenfell fire tragedy had found combustible cladding on some private flats - but the council had not gone public and informed the owners of the buildings.

Raymond Barlow, the assistant head of planning and building standards at Glasgow City Council, said at the time the authority had been waiting to hear from the Scottish Government on the issue.

Mr Stewart however complained of a “lack of detail'' in the information passed from the authority to a ministerial working group set up to probe building and fire safety.

Bill Dodds, the head of building standards at the Scottish Government, said it was “mainly clarity around the extend of the cladding'' they were seeking.

He told the committee: “The majority of the requests for clarity are around the age of the building, the height of the building the extent of the cladding material and so on.

“It's quite important to clarify in Grenfell the entire building was overclad with ACM (aluminium composite material), it was a complete enclosure of ACM material so what we're trying to do is establish whether we have a Greenfell type arrangement where the building is completely overclad in ACM product or if it is in isolated areas, that's the clarity we're asking.

“That request has gone back almost line by line now asking for that additional clarity, and we've been given a reassurance we will get that clarity hopefully by the end of next week.''

Mr Stewart confirmed he had received an email from the Government officials sent into the Glasgow this morning “which says they are on track to complete the necessary work by the end of this week''.

He pledged: “I will be keeping a close tab to make sure that work is completed as soon as it possibly can be, because we need to take actions necessary coming from the completed information we receive.'