A senior coroner in Rochdale has said of the toddler’s death that it should be a defining moment for social housing in the UK. Experts point out that we have been here before.
Residents have long bemoaned measures taken to make buildings look better, but not safer.
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Orders to fix serious defects, even up to ten years after completion, and to delay the occupation certificate developers need to sell apartments until they’re fixed, gives regulators real teeth.
Emergency responders and military personnel need to think creatively – even imaginatively – to save lives under pressure. Analyzing the Grenfell Tower Fire in London reveals useful lessons.
The public inquiry into Grenfell makes its first report – but those responsible for the circumstances leading up to the fire are yet to face the consequences.
Focus on the fire service.
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It will take time to digest the details of the 830-plus page report from phase one of the inquiry, but there are clear improvements to be made.
The materials used for cladding buildings can greatly affect a building’s overall vulnerability to fire. In Australia, buildings with flammable cladding continue to pose safety concerns.
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Ensuring a building will be safe against fire requires careful consideration from not only fire engineers, but also from builders, architects and building owners.
Grenfell Tower, one year after the fire.
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Estimated costs for Victoria alone range from hundreds of millions to as much as $1.6 billion If work to rectify buildings fitted with combustible cladding isn’t well handled.
Police have to analyse over 31m documents, 2,500 pieces of evidence and 2,332 witness statements. This makes Grenfell the biggest and most complex corporate manslaughter case ever brought.
Flames spread rapidly up the external wall cladding at the Lacrosse building in Melbourne in November 2014. More than four years on, the combustible panels are still in use.
MFB
Architects, certifiers and engineers who work as consultants to builders are on notice about potential liability for the use of flammable cladding, but governments are also culpable for their actions.
Professor of Architecture and SARChI: DST/NRF/SACN Research Chair in Spatial Transformation (Positive Change in the Built Environment), Tshwane University of Technology
Centennial Postdoctoral Fellow, School of Architecture and Planning, Centre for Urbanism and Built Environment Studies, University of the Witwatersrand