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Grenfell Tower Inquiry diary week 44: ‘I’ve never seen a fully compliant firefighting lift in any local authority building to this day, actually’

Insight22.07.215.30 PM by Peter Apps

This week the inquiry turned the focus to the building’s defective lifts, with evidence from an expert, contractors who worked on the lifts, and a former engineer at KCTMO. Peter Apps reports

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This week the inquiry turned the focus to the building’s defective lifts, with evidence from an expert, contractors who worked on the lifts, and a former engineer at KCTMO. Peter Apps reports #UKhousing

So, what was wrong with the lifts in Grenfell Tower?

The most fundamental flaw was that firefighters were unable to gain control of them on the night of the fire.

When one of the first crew members to arrive inserted a key into the control switch, it should have sent both lifts to the ground floor and put one under manual control of the fire service.

No KCTMO lifts met ‘firefighting’ standards amid ‘fundamental confusion’ over lift types, Grenfell Inquiry hears

Grenfell Tower Inquiry diary week 43: ‘Contractors at the time were not generally aware of the importance of leaving holes unsealed’

‘Most likely’ reason Grenfell lift control switch did not work was wrong sized key, says expert

This would have prevented residents from using them and aided in the transportation of equipment and rescues in the early stages of the fire.

But the switch did not work. The firefighter said that he felt it “hit some kind of stop” and that it “felt like [the key] wasn’t connecting to the mechanism”. The lifts remained in service.

Lawyers for the survivors have said this may have had “grave consequences”. Three residents are believed to have died after the lift they were in stopped and filled with smoke on the 10th floor at around 1.25am.

But the lifts were also not ‘firefighting’ lifts – meaning they lacked several key safety features necessary for use by firefighters, such as a secondary power source and an escape hatch.

The inquiry has spent this week and some of last week investigating how these failures came about. We’ll start with the switch.

‘Its dimensions were so grossly different that the key was unusable. Is that right?’

The key witness here is the inquiry’s expert, Roger Howkins (pictured above). While he declined to reach a firm conclusion as to why the switch did not work, he told the inquiry that his view of the “most likely” explanation was that the key did not fit.

He also presented two other possibilities: that the switch was damaged by the fire or that it was damaged in some other way before the fire, which prevented it from working. We will come to this latter point below.

The inquiry heard that the key was removed from the switch tower by another firefighter. He subsequently sent a key in to the police for analysis after the fire, but cannot be sure that it is the same one.

This key he sent was analysed by expert Andre Horne. It did not fit the switch.

“Its dimensions were so grossly different that the key was unusable. Is that right?” asked counsel to the inquiry Andrew Kinnier QC.

“That’s correct, yes,” Mr Howkins replied.

The testing found that the key could be inserted into the mechanism but would not turn it. When an exemplar key of different proportions was also tested, however, it worked.

It is important to note here that the switch at Grenfell required a specific type of ‘drop key’ – a more complicated key than the more standard triangular ‘Euro key’.

The specifications for the lifts actually asked for the ‘Euro key’, but the witness evidence was that Kensington and Chelsea Tenant Management Organisation (KCTMO) opted for a drop key due to a perceived fear of anti-social behaviour. They believed it was “too available” and vulnerable to abuse by “unauthorised persons”.

“I don’t accept that,” said Mr Howkins. “The Euro key has been used worldwide − well, European-wide – for many years. There’s thousands, probably tens of thousands of lifts with that type of key, and it’s a safer key because it’s got specific dimensions.”

All this appears to support the hypothesis that the wrong-sized key was used. But there is more to consider.

‘It was about half to three-quarters of a spoonful of builders’ rubbish’

The first testing on the switch after the fire was carried out in August 2018 by a firm called WSP on behalf of the Metropolitan Police. When it tested the ground-floor switch, it found that it was too difficult to operate with a normal drop key and that “the mechanism was seized and/or deformed”.

Further testing was carried out in February 2019 at the Building Research Establishment (BRE). This time, the switch was removed and compared with an exemplar switch.

The BRE found that it was “jammed” and contaminated with builders’ debris.

However, when a key was inserted, it did not work at first but after “some manipulation” the debris was cleared and it could be activated.

Asked how much debris was in the switch mechanism, Mr Howkins said: “It was about half to three-quarters of a spoonful of builders’ rubbish. Looked like plaster, to be quite honest, but I’m not a materials expert.”

“Dare I ask what size spoon?” asked Sir Martin Moore-Bick, inquiry chair (pictured above).

“A teaspoon,” replied Mr Howkins.

The switch was also damaged. It had bent sides, but this was something that Mr Howkins said could have been caused by inserting an ill-fitting key and turning it with excessive force.

In reaching his conclusion that the ill-fitting key was the “most likely” possibility, Mr Howkins noted that the attempt to activate the switch was in the very early stages of the fire – meaning it was unlikely to have been impacted by the blaze.

He also noted that it had been tested just a few weeks before the fire and found to work. And this is where we need to consider the evidence of one of the week’s other witnesses.

‘Looking back, I should have actually put it down that I checked it. But I didn’t’

In its opening statement for this part of the inquiry, the Fire Brigades Union challenged the conclusion that the reason the switch failed was an ill-fitting key.

Instead, it pointed to the switch being “jammed” and – in the words of its barrister – “caked in builders’ dust”.

It also called the evidence of the lift engineers that tested it “unreliable”. One of these engineers gave evidence this week.

Mark Wallis (pictured above) was a lift engineer from PDERS, a division of Otis Ltd, which had a contract with KCTMO for the checking and maintenance of its lifts.

He visited the tower on 12 April and 9 May 2017, just weeks before the fire, and ran some routine checks on the building’s lifts.

He was not obliged to test the switch during either of these visits and his paperwork makes no record of him having done so. But he claims he did – twice each time – as a result of his own “training and experience as an engineer”.

“Looking back, I should have actually put it down that I checked it. But I didn’t,” he said.

He said he remembered carrying out these checks vividly, despite having limited recollection of the visits in general.

“In answer to my question earlier about whether you recall the May visit, your answer was… that your recollection perhaps isn’t that good,” said Alex Ustych, counsel to the inquiry. “How do you reconcile that with the answer you give here?”

“It’s basically because of the fire that happened,” said Mr Wallis. “I know that I checked that switch.”

An email sent by one of his managers shortly after the fire claimed that he had checked “both” switches on his last visit. This is curious wording: both lifts were connected to the same single switch.

“I don’t know what he means by both, it was just the one switch,” said Mr Wallis, asked about this.

Ultimately, the decision over whether to accept this evidence that the lifts were checked will be a job for Sir Martin and his panel.

‘I mean, I’ve never seen a fully compliant firefighting lift in any local authority building to this day, actually’

What about the fact that the lifts did not meet firefighting standards? We already heard some evidence on this point last week, when engineers from Butler & Young Lift Consultants – which advised on a modernisation project in 2004 – gave evidence.

Its witnesses said that they did not believe there was a legal requirement to bring the lifts up to full firefighting standards as the work was simply a modernisation job, not the fitting of a new lift.

They also claimed that they were specifically told by KCTMO not to consider this work, which they said could cost up to an additional £100,000, and instead refurbish to the lower standard of “fireman’s lift”.

Mr Howkins’ view was that Butler & Young Lift Consultants’ specification for the job was “deficient in a number of respects”.

He wrote in his report: “Overall, it did not specify the features of a firefighting lift, which it should have done, unless it was not reasonably practicable to incorporate such features.

“I have seen no witness evidence or documents which suggest that any such deliberation or discussion took place.”

Would instruction from KCTMO that it did not want firefighting lifts relieve them of this burden?

“No, I don’t think it would,” said Mr Howkins. “I think the safety of the firefighters and the safety standard takes precedence from the client’s instruction. It’s a safety feature. It’s to help firefighters fight a fire in a high-rise building.”

The specification prepared by Butler & Young Lift Consultants was built by specialist contractor Apex.

Three witnesses from this firm also gave evidence this week. They said they were simply following the specification they were given.

“I wouldn’t have cause to raise a question of their specification,” said one witness, Gary Poynter.

His colleague, Roger Anthony (pictured above), added that it was usual not to upgrade lifts to full firefighting standards in council-owned blocks. “I mean, I’ve never seen a fully compliant firefighting lift in any local authority building to this day, actually. So why would it be different at Grenfell?” he said.

One of the reasons given was that including a trapdoor made the lift vulnerable to anti-social behaviour – if people used it to get access to the lift shaft and “lift-surf”.

Mr Howkins was critical of all of this. He said that the extensive work on the lifts meant they should have been considered new lifts instead of merely a modernisation.

As a result, Apex should have challenged the specification as it did not demand firefighting standards, he said.

“In my opinion, professionally, Apex should have informed Butler & Young in writing where the specification of the lifts they were going to install didn’t comply,” he said.

He also believed that a preference against trapdoors for security reasons was wrong. “We’re talking about lives of firefighters,” he said, explaining that the hatch was there to allow firefighters to escape.

Finally, he said there was no reason for council blocks to have a lower standard of lift.

“Does a lower standard of good industry practice apply to local authority housing compared to privately owned housing?” asked Mr Kinnier.

“No, it doesn’t,” said Mr Howkins, adding that “the same standards should apply to all types of high-rise residential building, regardless of ownership”.

‘It tends to speak to a fundamental confusion about the type of lifts in the TMO’s stock, doesn’t it?’

Finally, we also heard from Robin Cahalarn (pictured above), a former lift engineer employed by KCTMO, to answer questions about the organisation’s own strategy.

In particular, he was grilled about documents that appeared to show the organisation using the phrase “firefighting lifts” in official documents despite not installing them.

Mr Cahalarn said he believed none of the organisations met full firefighting standards.

But at a meeting in February 2010, for example, minutes record “the group concluded that most of the borough’s lifts meet the majority (but not all) of the criteria which define a firefighting lift”.

“Your previous evidence was that no lifts were firefighting lifts, and they were fireman’s lifts. If so, can you help us as to why the phrase ‘firefighting lifts’ is used here?” asked Mr Kinnier.

“No, I can’t,” said Mr Cahalarn.

“It tends to speak to a fundamental confusion about the type of lifts in the TMO’s stock, doesn’t it?” asked Mr Kinnier.

“Yes,” replied Mr Cahalarn.

Following this, Janice Wray, head of health and safety at KCTMO at the time, sent an email in March 2010 titled “Meeting requirements for firefighting lifts”, which listed various characteristics of the lifts in KCTMO’s high-rise properties.

“Can you help us as to why… you never corrected Janice Wray to say these are firemen’s lifts, not firefighting lifts?” asked Mr Kinnier.

“I don’t know why, I don’t remember that email,” replied Mr Cahalarn.

What’s next?

The inquiry should also have heard from fire risk assessment expert Colin Todd, but his evidence was delayed due to “medical reasons”.

He is set to appear next week, which will also be the inquiry’s last ahead of a five-week summer break.

Grenfell Tower Inquiry headlines: week 44

'Most likely' reason Grenfell lift control switch did not work was wrong sized key, says expert

The “most likely” reason firefighters were unable to bring the lifts in Grenfell Tower under their control on the night of the fire was the use of an incorrectly-sized key, an expert witness has told the inquiry.

No KCTMO lifts met 'firefighting' standards amid 'fundamental confusion' over lift types, inquiry hears

None of the lifts in the buildings managed by the Kensington and Chelsea Tenant Management Organisation (KCTMO) met “firefighting” standards, with the organisation afflicted by “fundamental confusion” about the type of lifts in its stock, the Grenfell Tower Inquiry heard today.

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