Lakanal House was at 'high risk from fire'
A tower block in which six people died in a blaze was a high-risk building that should have been checked for fire hazards as a priority, an expert witness has told an inquest.
David Walker, who has 29 years of experience as a building surveyor, also said there were social housing providers that had still not fire risk assessed some of their residential blocks.
Although, he said his firm’s instructions to carry out fire risk assessments had ‘increased dramatically’ after six people died in the 14-storey Lakanal House in Camberwell on 3 July 2009. His company does fire risk assessments for social housing providers.
Counsel to the inquest James Maxwell-Scott asked Mr Walker, who was asked to prepare a report for the coroner, on Wednesday: ‘Do you take the view that Lakanal House was a high-risk building which ought to have been prioritised and assessed early in any programme of carrying out fire risk assessments?’ ‘Yes, I do,’ he replied.
Southwark Council, which owns Lakanal House, was placed in charge of carrying out fire risk assessments on its properties in October 2006. Earlier this week the inquest heard it did not start carrying out assessments of its residential blocks until May 2009.
Coroner Frances Kirkham asked Mr Walker yesterday: ‘People providing social housing would have known for a while before this came into force?’ ‘They should have done, yes,’ he answered.
Andy Snazell, the London Fire Brigade’s borough commander for Southwark, was also quizzed yesterday, about an email he had sent in November 2008, when the London Fire Brigade was starting to train Southwark Council housing officers to do fire risk assessments.
He wrote in the email: ‘It will be interesting to see how many housing officer get out there and do some [fire risk assessments].’ He explained this was because it had been indicated to him that ‘a number of candidates had lacked interest or were late in attending’ the course.
Mr Walker also gave evidence on Tuesday, saying the full plans of a 2006/07 refurbishment of the block ‘should have been subject to full plans submission’ for building control approval - to ensure they met building regulations. Building approval was not obtained for the refurbishment work. He also said the panels on the outside of the block underneath the windows ‘should have had a 30-minute fire resistance’ to have complied with the building regulations at the time.
The inquest has heard the panels burnt through within minutes and were highly likely to have contributed to the spread of the fire.
Catherine Hickman, 31, died in the flat above where the fire started. Dayana Francisquini, 26, died with her children Thais, 6, and Felipe, 3, in the flat next door to Ms Hickman’s along with Helen Udoaka, 34, and her 20-day-old baby Michelle.
Evidence is expected to finish on Thursday next week.
