Evidence-based approach to fire safety
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]
9. This represents approximately 5 deaths per million people in England. Wandsworth’s share of that, based on a population of 310,000, would be around 1.5 per year. There were a further 580 serious casualties, perhaps 3 per year in Wandsworth. There are 6,400 flats in Wandsworth Council high rise (10+ storey) blocks. If average occupancy per flat is taken as 3 – possibly on the high side (again data are not available) – then around 6% of Wandsworth residents live in such properties. This programme of £24 million, plus service charges, plus ongoing maintenance, might on this admittedly approximate calculation save one life every 25 years and a serious injury every 12 years.
10. This calculation presumes that one is just as likely to die from a fire in a high rise block as other types of residents. This is questionable. In England in 2016/7 only 3 of the fire-related deaths were in buildings of 10+ storeys (down from 12 in 2009/10). Fatalities are more likely in fires in other types of dwelling: in 2016/7 0.4% of the (714) fire in high rise blocks had fatalities, compared with 0.8% of fires in medium-rise flats, 0.6% of fires in low-rise flats and 0.7% of fires in houses, bungalows, converted flats and other dwellings.[2]. A report by the National Fire Protection Association, released in November 2016[3] reaches the same conclusion for the USA: “The fire death rate per 1,000 fires and the average [financial] loss per fire are generally lower in high-rise buildings than in other buildings of the same property use.” Of course Grenfell Tower will skew the England statistics for 2017/8 but all the evidence suggests it should be treated as a singularity with little relevance to the situation in Wandsworth.
THE POSITION OF LEASEHOLDERS
11. The Council took legal advice in secret, released less than a fortnight before the Executive was scheduled to take the final decision, which seemed to rely on a clause in leases which refers to works which enhance the "efficient maintenance, administration or security of the Block" to force leaseholders both to install sprinklers even when they regard it as against their interests and to pay for them through their service charges.
12. As argued above, it is not at all clear how sprinklers would enhance the security of blocks given that over six decades of evidence proves that fire is not a threat to the security of 10+ storey blocks in Wandsworth. Nor is it clear how sprinklers could enhance the maintenance or administration of the blocks. The legal advice obtained in secret, presumably in the expectation that residents would not have time to challenge it before the Executive decision was taken, is questionable and residents must be given the chance to challenge it before any decisions are taken.
13. This is leaving aside any concerns of leaseholders and indeed residents more widely about the quality of work which is sometimes encountered during major works programmes, and fears for example about the effect of sprinkling water onto electrical or chip pan fires.
CONCLUSIONS
14. In recent years fire safety has improved markedly in all types of dwelling, and especially in 10+ storey blocks. Residents who suffer a fire are now less likely to die as a result in a 10+ storey block than in any other type of property. A pessimistic calculation suggests that Wandsworth may face one fatality in Council-owned 10+-storey blocks over the next 25 years as a result of fire. At a time when many tenants are in need of replacement kitchens, bathrooms, damp proofing etc. it is questionable as to whether £24 million is a good use of their money – they should at least be fully consulted. It is deeply ironic that at a time when tenants of Grenfell Tower and others are complaining about their councils not listening to their concerns that Wandsworth should propose to force such a sizeable project on residents with minimal if any meaningful involvement. For example, rather than targeting the effort at the elements of Wandsworth housing stock where it is likely to do the least good, residents may feel it more worthwhile to consider starting with those elderly residents who sadly seem more likely to start fires.
15. Given that there is no evidence that sprinklers would make it less likely that fire would spread through a block – since there is in effect no likelihood of that happening now, as (literally) countless examples show – then there is no justification for forcing leaseholders to install sprinklers against their interests. £3-4k may be a price that leaseholders are willing to pay and no doubt some leaseholders would choose to do so. But it should patently be up to the individual resident, often hard-pressed to pay for service charges as it is, to take that decision, whether or not they happen to live in a Council 10+ storey block.
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COUNCILLOR MALCOLM GRIMSTON
Town Hall, Wandsworth High Street,
London SW18 2PU
14th September 2017
[1] https://www.gov.uk/government/statistical-data-sets/fire-statistics-data-tables