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Worcester Park fire: Metropolitan Thames Valley confirms block will be rebuilt
Metropolitan Thames Valley Housing (MTVH) has told residents that a block of flats which was destroyed by a fire in south-west London will be rebuilt.
The housing association, which owns Richmond House in Worcester Park, said it has been given an estimate of “at least 18 months” for the rebuild.
A decision is yet to be made over who will rebuild the block, which was originally constructed by developer St James, a subsidiary of house builder Berkeley, in 2011.
Earlier this month a fire completely destroyed the 23-home building, which Inside Housing revealed was constructed using a timber frame.
After the fire, Martin Corbett, Sutton borough fire commander, predicted that the building would need to be knocked down and rebuilt.
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Residents of Richmond House remain in temporary accommodation, with MTVH saying it is doing “everything it can” to find a permanent solution.
MTVH also told residents it plans to inspect each of the 15 buildings it owns on the Hamptons development, of which Richmond House was a part.
It said that the surveys will go beyond a “basic visual inspection” and will inspect “the fabric of the building and the underlying construction details”.
Inside Housing has asked to see the latest fire risk assessment for Richmond House but was told by MTVH that the association would not release this information while “investigations are ongoing and live”.
The association also said that it is working with St James to install a fire alarm system across the estate, which will allow it to phase out the 24-hour waking watch that was put in place immediately following the fire.
The Worcester Park fire was the second high-profile fire at a timber-framed development in the past two months after a care home in Crewe was largely destroyed by a blaze. The fire resulted in 150 people being evacuated.
In a statement immediately after the fire, Lee Shears, head of protection at Cheshire Fire and Rescue Service, said the fire “spread rapidly”.
Following both fires, experts from across the sector have said that they demonstrated the need for sprinklers in residential blocks.
Speaking after the Worcester Park fire, Jim Glockling, technical director at the Fire Protection Association, told Inside Housing that fires in which buildings are completely lost may become the “new normal” because of the increased use of combustible building methods such as light timber frame. He said that to protect their assets, building owners need to choose non-combustible materials or insist on the installation of “active protection such as sprinklers”.
