Grenfell fire engineers were aware cladding was planned when they wrote report, inquiry hears

He added: “We understood that what was proposed was fairly routine and something that all consultants would be familiar with… From our point of view, at this point… that sentence confirmed to us there was no concern [with regard to the cladding].”

He said he received no further advice from Exova about compliance with the regulatory requirement regarding external fire spread.

Asked why he never requested it, he said: “I repeat: there was no concern identified and we did not think to follow it up.”

When the inquiry opened in January, a lawyer acting for the survivors severely criticised Exova for failing to raise concerns about the cladding at this stage. Stephanie Barwise QC said this claim gave the design team “a false sense of security” and was “likely to be causative” in regard to the fire.

The zinc cladding panels proposed in 2013 were later switched for more combustible aluminium composite panels, but Exova was never invited back to complete the “future issue of this report” it referenced.

The day’s evidence was limited to the morning session because Mr Sounes was taken ill and was unable to return to the witness box after lunch.

The morning session was also read an internal email from Exova, shortly after its appointment in summer 2012.

It described the plans as making “a crap condition worse” and said they would “massage the proposal to something acceptable”. Mr Sounes described this email as “raising a level of concern I was not aware of”.

The hearing was also shown an October 2012 email from Colin Chiles, who was project director at Leadbitter, the then contractor for the refurbishment.

Referring to unspecified fire safety concerns from the Grenfell Action Group of residents, he wrote: “Our client requires us to deal with this and I am not willing to commence the works until I receive demonstration that the fire safety of the estate has been considered on the design.

“The response received from Exovia[sic] is in my opinion casual. Should I issue this to GAG, it would further exacerbate an already high project risk.”

In its opening statement, Exova emphasised that it was never invited back after October 2013 to provide the final opinion on external fire spread that it had indicated was necessary.

The inquiry has already heard this week that Studio E had no experience of high rises or cladding projects and would have been unlikely to have won the job if an open procurement had been held.

Yesterday, Mr Sounes revealed he had little knowledge of the basic regulations governing high rise refurbishment, and did not look them up during the project. Instead, he said he relied on the consultants and building control inspectors to ensure the work complied.

The evidence continues tomorrow with Neil Crawford, who reported to Mr Sounes at Studio E.