Grenfell disaster: Firms which refurbished tower 'knew cladding would be fire risk'
The boss of a firm which put in plastic-filled panels was told: "As we all know; the ACM will be gone rather quickly in a fire!"
Tuesday 28 January 2020 17:17, UK
Several firms responsible for refurbishing Grenfell Tower knew its cladding would be a fire risk before it was installed, according to emails shown to the public inquiry into the disaster.
Ray Bailey, the managing director of Harley Facades, which installed plastic-filled ACM panels during the tower block's refurbishment, was told by one of his managers: "As we all know; the ACM will be gone rather quickly in a fire!"
Two years later, 72 people died when a kitchen fire that started in a fourth floor flat engulfed the west London building in June 2017.
The ACM panels were identified in the first phase of the Grenfell Tower inquiry as "the principal reason why the flames spread so rapidly up the building".
Inquiry chairman Sir Martin Moore-Bick said the panels' polyethylene cores "melted and acted as a source of fuel for the growing fire".
The email to Mr Bailey, sent on 27 March 2015, was headed "Re: Grenfell Tower Fire Barriers".
It was one of a series presented to the inquiry as evidence that key figures were arguing against efforts by a council building control officer to have fire stops included in a combustible cladding system.
Another email sent four days later from Terry Ashton at fire engineer Exova Warringtonfire to Neil Crawford at the architect Studio E said: "Even if we were to agree with RBKC [Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea] it is difficult to see how a fire stop would stay in place."
Some 43 minutes later, the email exchange was forwarded by Mr Crawford to Simon Lawrence, contract manager at main contractor Rydon, with the comment: "Seems like no one really agrees with John, so let's see what he comes back with after my last email."
The inquiry was told John was a building control officer at RBKC.
The email exchanges showed that fire retardant cladding panels originally chosen for the refurbishment but later substituted were also expected to burn in a fire.
Sky News revealed a week after the disaster that zinc panels had been chosen by Grenfell Tower residents in a community consultation held in 2012, which stated they were "fire retardant" and had "many benefits".
But in 2015 email exchanges revealed at the inquiry, Mr Crawford at Studio E said: "Metal cladding always burns and falls off", while Mr Ashton at Exova predicted that flames outside the building "would cause the zinc cladding to fail".