Construction News interviewed Mr Attwood about the ‘niche refurbishment specialist’ company’s work on the Houses of Parliament, specifically in relation to the ‘catastrophic’ fire at Notre-Dame Cathedral last year, which was ‘a warning to owners of historical buildings: protect your property or risk destruction’. The fire ‘amplified the awareness around fire safety, which had been growing since’ Grenfell, with such considerations representing an ‘additional challenge’ for contractors.
The company ‘specialises in preserving and restoring historic buildings’, and the three and a half year project at the Palace of Westminster saw it upgrade all 800 of the fire doors ‘to bring them up to standard’. Mr Attwood commented that ‘within the context of the historic buildings that we work in, fire safety is absolutely paramount. Just look at what happened with Notre-Dame’.
It aims to move further into fire safety going forward because ‘we have specialists within the team, and we are now moving towards making it a specialist division. There needs to be much more awareness and focus and legislation put in place that contractors are really following all the necessary guidelines, and also have an awareness on site about fire safety.
‘There is a lot in place already, but it is about fusing it all together and having a representative on site that would actually deal with fire safety within that environment’. Many of the fire safety renovations like that at Westminster ‘need to be completed in a safe manner that also keeps the traditional aesthetic of the build’, something that it ‘ran into’ on this project as while it ‘upgraded all the historic fire doors […] we had a lot of constraints because we can’t affect the historic fabric.
‘Any fire safety measures have got to be discrete, so we would for example enhance the glass within the door frames, or if there is stained glass in there we’ll put another glass panel in to act as a fire safety panel’.
Two years ago, it was revealed that ‘much of the parliamentary estate’ would close that summer for ‘urgent renovation work’ amid fire safety concerns, after a report in September 2017 stated that the Houses of Parliament would receive a £118m upgrade, with the government having budgeted the money to pay for the 'eight-year' programme of fire safety improvements across its estate.
‘High pressure watermist systems’ were to be installed alongside sprinklers, with automatic fire detection and voice alarm systems, emergency lighting, dampers, fire signage, compartmentation, fire doors and the water systems to be fitted or replaced. The June 2018 report said that the ‘urgent’ work came ‘amid growing fire safety concerns’, with fire inspectors said to ‘roam the corridors 24 hours a day so that the building can pass the safety tests required to stay open’.
The fire safety improvement works programme, the ‘extensive fire safety renovation’ works, were said then to have to have been carried out to ‘address immediate safety concerns by the end of [2018]’, but MPs and officials warned that authorities were ‘miles behind’ on the work, while a senior official said the building was ‘another Grenfell waiting to happen’.
Earlier in 2018, then Commons Speaker John Bercow was said to have ‘ignored’ findings of an internal audit on improving fire safety in the Houses of Parliament, with leaked documents showing that he ‘went against official advice and kept a policy that prevents fire alarms from sounding at Westminster’, even despite ‘increasing fears of a serious blaze’.
There had been 60 incidents since 2008 that ‘could have resulted in a serious fire’, with insiders adding that there were ‘about five fires a week’ on the site. Issues meant the building was ‘a calamity waiting to happen’, with the basement containing ‘fire hazards, asbestos, water leaks, seeping drainage units, outdated electrical systems and antiquated steam-powered heating apparatus’.
Fire was said to be the ‘most serious problem’, with many areas not having compartmentation, while gas pipes and electricity ‘run side by side’, and steel drip trays have been installed ‘to prevent leaking water falling directly on electric cables’. Additionally, electric cabling from the 1940s is clad in vulcanised Indian rubber ‘which turns to dust after a time’, and officials feared it has ‘turned to fine powder’ that could ‘easily set alight’.
More recently, two clerks of work roles overseeing fire safety improvements were given to Hickton amid worries that ‘that restoring the Palace of Westminster will increase the threat of fire’. The work is said to be worth £250,000, and will include overseeing ‘three live projects and the completion of one major scheme’, with work scheduled to finish in December this year.
In May, the overall £4bn plan was ‘thrown into doubt’ after a ‘sweeping review’ of the project was announced, with ‘every option’ said to be ‘now back on the table’. Conservative MP Andrea Leadsom had argued in February 2019 that the palace risked ‘burning down’ if work did not begin ‘soon’, pleading with a parliamentary committee that the government was ‘desperately keen’ to ‘crack on’ with restoration work amid concerns over fire safety.
She cautioned at the time against ‘allowing history to repeat itself’ after the Palace of Westminster burned down in 1834, and noted that there are ‘significant measures’ in place to make sure the buildings conform to fire regulations, but a ‘lot of money’ needed to be spent improving drainage, sewage, wiring, plumbing and heating. In July, she again argued that the place is a ‘disaster waiting to happen’ if MP’s don’t vote to move parliament to another venue during safety works.