SUMMARY by Councillor Malcolm Grimston

Wandsworth Council does not collect statistics on fire deaths in Council-related properties. However, national evidence concerning fire-related fatalities prior to the Grenfell Tower tragedy reveals several trends.

· Fire-related deaths in all types of property have fallen steadily and significantly (by almost two thirds) over the 35 years during which records have been kept by the Government.

· In England in 2016/17 the likelihood of dying in a fire was smallest in a 10+ story block (0.4% of fires resulting in fatality) and highest in a medium-rise block (0.8%), reflecting the position of previous years. Evidence from the USA published in November 2016 supports this observation.

Presuming no further improvement in fire safety it might be expected, on pessimistic assumptions, that there will be one fatality owing to fire in Council-owned 10+ storey blocks in Wandsworth over the next 25 years and three severe fire-related injuries.

Given this data and the fact that, in the words of the Assistant Director of Housing Maintenance, “nothing that has happened in any other fire in Wandsworth or indeed elsewhere in the UK compares to Grenfell Tower”, it is highly questionable as to whether the £24 million programme proposed for putting sprinklers in the very properties least likely to suffer fire-related fatalities, against a background of extremely low risk in all properties, represents value for money for tenants across the Borough. It is also difficult, if not impossible, to argue that installing sprinklers in 10+ storey blocks will improve the security, maintenance or administration of such blocks.

The OSC is recommended to ask the Executive to carry out a full consultation of tenants across the Borough to ascertain whether there is general support for their rents being spent in this way rather than, say, on improved capital works; and to allow leaseholders in Council blocks the same rights as residents in other kinds of tenure to decide for themselves whether they wish to invest £3-4 k of their money in the scheme, given its highly marginal benefits.

RECOMMENDATIONS

1. All tenants in the Borough be provided with the data presented in this paper and elsewhere and asked if they are content that their rents be spent in providing sprinklers as proposed.

2. Leaseholders in 10+ storey Council blocks should be allowed to decide for themselves whether they wish to buy into a scheme of sprinklers, should one go ahead.

BLOCK SAFETY AND INDIVIDUAL SAFETY

3. There is very strong experiential evidence that a fire in a Wandsworth tower block, with the possible but not clear-cut exception of the two which were lagged, would not threaten the security of the whole block. At Grenfell Tower it was the building itself that caught fire, probably because of the way the cladding was attached and the materials used. It was not because the fire in a particular flat was sufficiently severe to cause problems for residents living in the other flats. At Lakenal House in Southwark in 2009 a fire did spread to some neighbouring flats, causing six fatalities, but this is an extremely rare occurrence; ion that sad case the local Council was found not to have carried out fire checks efficiently and was fined. Indeed, of the fire recorded in 2016 only 8% spread even to a neighbouring room.

4. West Hill Ward boasts the first four tower blocks to be built by London County Council in the early 1950s on the Ackroydon Estate; for 65 years these blocks have protected residents, often from themselves, with admirable efficiency. To rephrase this, the security of these blocks is not and never has been under threat from the risk of a fire in a particular flat.

5. That still leaves the safety of individuals within a home which does suffer a fire. It does seem clear that sprinklers improve safety within a property. Any individual faces a minuscule but non-zero risk of being severely injured or worse in a fire in their home. That risk would become smaller, though still not non-zero, if they installed sprinklers.

6. Residents living in non-Council properties have the right to choose if they believe that installing sprinklers is a good way of spending £3-4k of their family resources, just as they get to choose whether to reinforce the roof of their properties to protect against meteorite impact, another minuscule but non-zero risk. Just because a resident happens to be a leaseholder in a Council block rather than a private one or a lower rise property does not seem to be a reason why they should be forced to take a measure which they do not regard as being the best use of their own money. The proposed £24 million HRA cost of this programme, plus leaseholder service charges on top, would have saved 0 lives in Wandsworth in the last 5 years: as Mr Stewart says: “The two recent [i.e. in the last five years] fire related deaths occurred in a house and on the ground floor of a low-rise block. Both involved vulnerable occupants accidentally setting fire to themselves with cigarettes and perishing as a result – one in their bed and one on a sofa.” It would have saved 0 lives when the flat in Sudbury House, photographs of which Mr Reilly has circulated, caught fire. It would have saved 0 lives in the serious fire at Chillingford House in 1998 when Cllr Grimston had the Housing chair.

7. It is not possible to say with any precision how many, if any, lives have been lost through fire in the Wandsworth high rise stock because the Council does not appear to believe these are data worth collecting. In Mr Stewart’s words: “I do not know how many fire deaths have occurred in Wandsworth in the last 20 years.”

8. However, there are national data which offer a guide. Fire deaths in England in 2016/7 were the lowest since records started in 1981/2, continuing a steady trend throughout that period. The total has fallen from 755 in 1981/2 to 261 in 2016/7.[1]