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RBKC said no to fire door inspections as safety benefit ‘impossible to quantify’
The council that owned Grenfell Tower rejected calls from the London Fire Brigade (LFB) to implement a fire door inspection programme as it felt the benefit to residents’ safety was “impossible to quantify”.
The Grenfell Tower Inquiry heard today from Janice Wray, former health and safety lead at Kensington and Chelsea Management Organisation (KCTMO), which was employed by the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea (RBKC) to manage and maintain its housing stock.
In 2017 Ms Wray recommended to KCTMO and RBKC leaders that a regular inspection programme of fire doors be introduced following repeated pressure from the LFB.
Specifically the LFB wanted KCTMO to regularly check that fire door self-closers were fitted properly, as it is crucial that fire doors remain closed in the event of a fire.
The inquiry has already established that most of the self-closers on fire doors at Grenfell Tower were broken or missing on the night of the fire, which is believed to have contributed to the spread of smoke through the building.
Previously the inquiry has heard other witnesses from KCTMO state that such a programme was rejected by Laura Johnson, RBKC’s director of housing at the time, because of budget concerns.
Today the inquiry was shown a report prepared by Ms Wray in 2017 outlining why RBKC decided not to implement the inspection programme for fire doors.
It read: “Concern was expressed that the real value of such a programme in terms of improving resident safety is impossible to quantify and so it is difficult to justify committing limited resources to a programme which would then be ongoing indefinitely.”
Mr Wray told the inquiry she believed those words may have been “a direct quote from Laura” and said she did not agree with the council’s reasoning for refusing to implement an inspection programme.
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She said that she thought it was Ms Johnson’s belief that the LFB’s requirement to introduce regular fire door inspections was not being “applied consistently across London”, adding that she “had the impression she would have been happier to implement it if she was confident that everyone was being treated equally and held to the same standards”.
Ms Wray’s March 2017 report said: “If the London Fire Brigade were to make this a priority and look to introduce this as a London-wide standard that they will enforce against (rather than on a borough by borough basis) we would take legal advice and make representations to the [Greater London Authority] in advance of instigating an inspection programme.”
Ms Wray insisted that she regularly raised the issue of fire door self-closer inspections with senior staff at KCTMO but was “unable to persuade people with budgets that this is what they should spend their money on, because they have new heating systems and new roofs and other things which are equally important”.
While Ms Wray accepted that KCTMO did not have a programme in place for monitoring fire door self-closers as required by government advice, she claimed that estates services assistants were asked to monitor this issue when visiting tower blocks.
However, she accepted that this was not included in a lengthy spreadsheet setting out issues they should check.
She said that the organisation had spoken to its gas servicing contractor to see if checks could be incorporated into annual gas checks but that this had not proved possible.
She told the inquiry that KCTMO would check self-closers during major works or when properties were vacated at the end of a tenancy but had no routine process of checks outside of these times.
Ms Wray was also asked about an infamous blog written by resident Edward Daffarn in November 2016 that warned in stark terms of a fire in Grenfell Tower.
The blog, which has been viewed hundreds of thousands of times since the fire, declared that “only a catastrophic event will expose the ineptitude and incompetence of our landlord”.
Shortly before this post – and unknown at the time to Mr Daffarn – KCTMO had been served with a deficiency notice covering Grenfell Tower.
However, internal emails show that when Ms Wray was asked for comments on the blog by local Labour councillor Judith Blakeman, she did not mention this fact.
One of the issues raised by the LFB was a lack of signs advising tenants on what to do in a fire – an issue also raised by Mr Daffarn in the blog post.
“Why did you not mention here in this email that the TMO had received a deficiency notice for Grenfell Tower for failing to install fire action notices?” asked Richard Millett, lead counsel to the inquiry.
“I have no idea,” she replied. “There’s quite a lot in the email and it may just have dropped off my radar… I can’t give you any explanation other than it was an oversight.”
“Well how can it have been an oversight, it only happened a week before?” Mr Millett asked.
“I was trying to give her quite a lot of comprehensive information, and it just literally dropped off my radar,” Ms Wray replied.
The inquiry continues next Tuesday with further evidence from Ms Wray.
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