INQUIRY EXPERT Dr Barbara Lane criticised the company’s attitude towards residents with mobility issues, as well as its inability to respond correctly to key questions during the Grenfell refurbishment.
Building and Belfast Telegraph reported on the continued evidence from Dr Barbara Lane, after she had begun by discussing fire safety consultant Exova’s ‘entirely inadequate’ advice on the project. On Exova’s 2012 report, which lacked detail on how those with mobility issues could escape, the inquiry was reminded of the views of Exova’s former principal fire engineer Dr Clare Barker, who ‘did not consider’ these people and that ‘if they did have mobility issues then maybe Grenfell Tower wasn’t the best place for them to live’.
Dr Lane did not ‘at all agree’ that there was ‘no duty whatsoever to even consider the residential floors […] I am very clear in my own mind, there is no sec in [ADB] for high rise residential that expressly asks for x y measures. It doesn’t say: “In a high rise res, please put in refuges, please put in lifts”. I understand that and I accept that.
‘But it makes very clear these are reasonable measures. And there are cases where the fire safety engineer needs to consider the occupancy profile and if these general provisions are relevant’. She also said that many ‘valid’ queries posed by designers to Exova were responded to with ‘incorrect advice at key points’, a consequence of the company making ‘no reference’ to building regulations requirements over fire spread on external walls in its strategy.
It was her belief that Exova associate Terry Ashton should have updated his strategy or flagged shortcomings after questions from Studio E and Harley, and she challenged Exova’s suggestion that it had been ‘substantially excluded’ from the project after Rydon joined in 2014. She pointed to email exchanges in September 2014 and March 2015 when Mr Ashton was asked for advice on issues ‘now known to have been central to the refurbishment’s fatal flaws’.
He was asked by Harley’s Daniel Anketell Jones and Studio E’s Neil Crawford about the need for cavity barriers around windows, and the internal fire performance of the cladding, with Mr Ashton responding that barriers would be needed if insulation set to go behind the cladding was combustible. Dr Lane disagreed, and said ‘it doesn’t matter if the insulation is combustible or not, you are required to provide cavity barriers.
‘He needed to say: “You need cavity barriers on the floor lines and around the windows and the top of the wall”. It doesn’t matter what insulation or anything else you’ve selected for the columns or between he areas between the columns’. That same day, Mr Ashton was sent a datasheet for the insulation, which would go behind the cladding, and Mr Anketell-Jones asked Mr Ashton whether it was right that barriers would not be required for use with this as it was “class 0”.
Mr Ashton had replied that not all products with a class 0 rating were non combustible, and Dr Lane said this exchange was a ‘really important moment […] you’ve got professionals asking really specific questions about B4, as they’re entitled to do. They needed to hear that insulation needs to be a material of limited combustibility, which is not class 0, and they needed to hear, regardless, cavity barriers were required around the window’.
She said that Mr Ashton ‘should have at least warned’ them that using such insulation would be a ‘fundamental breach’ of the building regulations, and that the emails should have ‘underscored’ that Exova’s strategy needed updating with relevant information on resisting fire spread over external walls: ‘The design team clearly need some help. It’s time to do the work to give them the guidance that they need.’
She noted that Mr Ashton knew ‘at that point’ that the insulation being proposed was not compliant with regulations, and he should have known barriers were missing: ‘There’s two red flags raised. I think it’s now time to start worrying about what the external surface is, and how together the three things can comply with B4.’
Dr Lane then pointed to emails between Studio E, Harley and Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea building control in March 2015, which showed there was still a ‘lack of clarity’ about whether barriers were required: ‘We now see entering into the narrative here a confusion about the difference between a firestop and a cavity barrier, and the need for someone who understands that fully, which is the fire safety engineer’s job, to explain what those two things are, what they’re for, and where they needed.’
She later disputed Exova’s assertion in its opening statement that ‘continuing obligations’ on the project ended when Rydon was appointed, stating that its suggestion it had been ‘substantially excluded’ from the project was a ‘very strong way’ to describe its role, as it had continued to answer questions and invoice for work.
Dr Lane said there was no evidence that KCTMO had ‘stood Exova down’, adding: ‘I don’t understand why that is being said. I see people contacting the fire safety engineer when they think they need some fire safety advice. That’s not the classification of exclusion in my mind.’