Flammable cladding removed from two Bristol tower blocks
But it remains on dozens of others
Bristol City Council says its making progress as it tries to remove dangerous cladding from dozens of residential tower blocks.
Last year it emerged flammable cladding was on 37 blocks across Bristol after a fire at Eccleston House in Barton Hill was helped to spread by the material.
Since then the council's been working out how to remove it all, and says they've now done so from Eccleston House and its neighbouring block Phoenix House.
The announcement came ahead of an additional £75 million of fire safety measures – three times the amount already earmarked by the local authority – which will be outlined next week in papers to a cabinet meeting
That's according to the council's cabinet member for housing Tom Renhard, speaking to a member forum on Tuesday, January 10.
The issue
There was widespread outcry last year when it emerged dangerous cladding was still on so many tower blocks in Bristol, five years after the Grenfell Tower disaster in London.
In an exclusive interview with us at the time, councillor Renhard admitted he did not know how long it had been there, but it was later confirmed that the so called Expanded Polystyrene (EPS) cladding, was installed on the first Bristol blocks including Eccleston House and Phoenix House, in 1995.
It was most recently installed on three blocks in 2018, the year after the Grenfell disaster, although at that time we're told it passed all safety checks.
To try and ensure safety at the blocks while the cladding is removed, so called waking watches, 24-hour patrols by fire wardens have been brought in, at a cost of nearly £200,000 a week.
Though with this latest news, the patrols at Ecclestone House and Phoenix House have now stopped.
Council action
As well as working to remove the cladding and introducing waking watches in the meantime, councillor Renhard said in November that the council’s sprinkler programme would be “accelerated” after it emerged that the systems had been installed in just one block since a major investment was announced four years ago.
He told Tuesday’s meeting that fire patrols remained in place at Butler House in St George – the solitary building with sprinklers – because waking watches could only be removed on fire service advice if either the cladding was made safe or communal fire alarms were put in.
Opposition Tory councillor Geoff Gollop told member forum that this ongoing cost “pales into insignificance compared with the safety of our residents” but that it was still prone to human error by the wardens and could not be the solution for the next five years.
He asked: “Are we looking at accelerating the capital programme to remove the need for a waking watch and to improve the safety of residents?”
Councillor Renhard replied: “Yes, we already have – the cabinet paper we took in December outlined a lot of that.
“The point of the communal fire alarms going in was that it will negate the need for a waking watch.
“Some blocks, though, will have the EPS cladding removed quicker.
“Obviously the priority is our residents and their safety but we are considering the finance in among what is an additional £75million on top of the £25million that was already earmarked for fire safety that we have had to find provision for, largely over the next five years.
“Eccleston House and Phoenix House have already had EPS cladding removed, so the waking watch has been removed in consultation with the fire service, and the next block we expect that to be the case for is Gilton House.
“We are taking every step possible to implement fire safety measures, so next week cabinet’s papers will be published setting out the detail of what we are doing around fire safety, sprinklers and communal fire alarms.”
Sprinklers were installed at Butler House after tenants in the original block set for the pilot project, Castlegate House in Brislington, objected.
In a written reply to questions from other Conservative councillors, Labour mayor Marvin Rees, who did not attend because of illness, said: “When surveyed the residents had experienced two other fires within the block which were contained within a single property, resulting in them feeling safe in their homes.
“Residents also did not want the potential disruption nor did they like the aesthetics of the sprinkler after a trial in a flat and laundry area.”
He said lessons learned resulted in a new design to make it look nicer by hiding the pipework.
“We should also consider the risks to people’s property should sprinklers be triggered by an incident in another nearby property,” Mr Rees said.
The mayor said new powers were available to the council under the Building Safety Act, including powers of entry to support safety activity, so “any opposition to installations may be overcome considerately with residents, but legally if required”.
He added: “This would need to form part of a wider policy and consultation process with residents that has not yet happened.”
Cllr Renhard told the meeting that cabinet was considering whether to take a “split approach” by simply installing sprinklers in some blocks and holding a ballot of tenants in others to decide whether to have them.
“Either way, the funding for the sprinkler programme will be fully costed for within the five-year programme for all blocks, irrespective of what approach we take, so we are not going to make any attempt to try to get out of the sprinkler programme and funding it fully,” he said.