OXFORD CITY Council (OCC) said that work is ‘set to start’ on replacing high pressure laminate (HPL) cladding on the city’s Hockmore Tower.
In July 2019, fire safety work, including removing and replacing claddng, on the tower in Cowley was announced, with OCC reassuring tower residents that homes ‘remain safe’. In 2018, it was reported that work to replace cladding on the city’s Windrush and Evenlode blocks was nearing completion.
Earlier that year, replacement works began on the two blocks after their cladding failed the government’s safety tests. The new cladding was chosen as it was ‘in line with the requirements of the updated central government guidance’, with the council’s contractors Fortem to undertake the recladding work.
The £1m project to remove and replace the cladding followed initial confusion in 2017 about whether the blocks should have been evacuated, with fire crews put on standby in case a fire started and firefighters ‘going door-to-door’ to reassure residents. The two Oxford towers were set to ‘be among the first to be completed’, with the council ‘seeking to reclaim costs’ from the government.
With the work now nearly complete on all five blocks, the council’s housing team and Oxfordshire Fire and Rescue Service (OFRS) met with Hockmore Tower residents, with the tower described as the ‘most heavily impacted’ block. Removal of the HPL cladding had been set to be completed by January 2020, while the Headington and Blackbird Leys blocks would see ‘less significant work done’.
Simon Furlong, OFRS’s chief fire officer, confirmed to residents at the meeting that the building was safe ‘and will remain so during and after work’, adding that the building is fitted with sprinklers and heat and smoke detectors in all communal areas, as well as ‘upgraded’ fire doors, non combustible insulation underneath the HPL cladding, fire breaks within its cladding system, automatic venting systems for stairwells and ‘upgraded fire seals’ to the building’s waste chutes.
The HPL rainscreen makes up 40% of the building’s exterior façade, while the Evenlode and Windrush tower blocks in Blackbird Leys only have rain screens on balcony panels, making up ‘less than’ 10% of the facades, and their cladding has already been removed. The Foresters and Plowman towers in Headington meanwhile were clad with sheet aluminium rainscreen and non combustible insulation, with minor ‘snagging’ to be done there.
The council noted that it will ‘again seek to recover’ costs from the government, and residents ‘will not be charged’, while contractors Fortem estimated the work would take three to four months to replace the HPL. OCC has now announced that the work is ‘set to start’ on replacing the HPL on Hockmore Tower, with Fortem having ‘agreed to pay to replace the cladding’.
Residents were visited by council officers this week to ‘hand deliver letters’ informing them that work would start next month, with OCC stating it was ‘one of the first local authorities in the country to decide to replace’ HPL. The remainder of the facade is clad in sheet aluminium, which OCC said was ‘the safest type of rain screen on the market and will remain’, while the insulation beneath is mineral wool ‘which is non-combustible’.
However, removing the cladding means that ‘the insulation will be damaged by being exposed to the elements, and so it will also ‘therefore be replaced’ – additionally, a ‘small amount’ of HPL will be removed from the Evenlode and Windrush towers, where it only covers the balcony external balustrade panels, or ‘less than 10% of each building’s façade’. This will be replaced with sheet aluminium on both towers in ‘the same colour’ as the HPL, meaning both will ‘look identical’ to before.
OCC noted that the work was ‘originally due to start’ in January, and did not so because ‘it was decided to ask architects to look again’ and ‘absolutely ensure’ Hockmore Tower ‘would be as safe as possible’. A series of changes were made to the scheme as a result, including that photovoltaic cells will be removed from the south elevation as ‘it is no longer advisable to install’ them on buildings over 18m, with OCC investigating if they can be installed on other city properties.
As a consequence of removing those panels and the HPL, the structural support system holding the cladding in place across the building ‘will need to be altered’, and while only 40% of the HPL was planned to removed, it ‘will need to be removed on all sides’ to ‘access and alter’ the supports, meaning ‘all the insulation will need to be replaced’.
In terms of timing, the changes mean the work would ‘now take about a year to complete’, with Fortem to begin work from November, while also removing and replacing HPL on the Evenlode and Windrush blocks. That work will also begin in November, and is expected to be completed in March 2021. Residents of those two towers were also given hand delivered letters about the work starting.
Mike Rowley, cabinet member for affordable housing and housing the homeless, stated: ‘The safety of our tenants has always been and will always be our primary concern. From the outset we listened to the advice of the fire service and went above and beyond the government’s rules, installing sprinklers in every flat, new fire detectors and new fire doors. We have invested £22.5m into our tower blocks since 2016.
‘This has not just improved the fire safety of the buildings, but also upgraded the heating systems and insulation to reduce energy bills for tenants, and improved the entrances, waste recycling and landscaping. The work will secure the homes for the next 30 years. We are committed to building new council houses to provide homes for Oxford’s young people, but we are also committed to improving our existing homes so that families can feel safe and secure to live and build their lives in Oxford.’
Rob MacDougall, chief fire officer of OFRS, stated: ‘Oxford’s five tower blocks are safe to live in. [OCC] consulted [OFRS] for our advice before carrying out the refurbishment of the city’s five tower blocks, and they have been in regular communication with us ever since. When we assess fire safety we look carefully at the whole building.
‘Hockmore Tower – with its fire alarms, upgraded fire doors, evacuation policy and, most especially, its sprinklers – far exceeds the standards required by the legislation.’