About 70 high-rise residential blocks have failed fire safety tests carried out in the wake of the Grenfell Tower blaze, the Guardian has learned.
The precise figure for failures in new tests on exterior cladding and foam insulation combined, as used at Grenfell, will be announced by the Department for Communities and Local Government (DCLG) later on Friday.
It is understood that about 70 blocks have failed the tests, which were carried out following advice from an advisory panel of fire safety experts convened to assist the department.
Of the 70, only nine blocks, in Salford, Greater Manchester, are local authority flats, with the rest owned either privately or by housing associations.
Tests on exterior cladding was ordered for blocks more than 18 metres high following the Grenfell blaze on 14 June, in which at least 80 people died.
The aluminium composite material (ACM) cladding used at Grenfell tower, in west London, was identified as a factor in the rapid spread of the fire. It was initially believed that about 530 social and housing association blocks had the same cladding.
Urgent tests by the Building Research Establishment found that all such cladding failed combustibility standards. With almost all the tests completed, the DCLG said last week that about 240 blocks were found to have used the ACM cladding.
During the process, a panel of fire safety experts appointed by the communities secretary, Sajid Javid, recommended that more thorough tests were also carried out, involving three different types of ACM cladding combined with various types of insulation.
This is the type of test in which samples from 70 blocks have been found to have failed to meet necessary standards.
Many blocks have been retrofitted with foam insulation to make flats more energy-efficient, with this is generally covered in a decorative and rainproof cladding. As well as meeting combustibility tests, such combinations should also have been installed with appropriate fire-stopping measures to prevent any blaze spreading up the exterior of a block.
The shadow housing minister, John Healey, has criticised the testing programme as too slow and potentially too narrow, saying the checks on high-rise blocks should also examine wider fire safety issues.
The new tests will form a key element of an inquiry into the blaze, an initial element of which is expected to report urgently on what caused the fire and to recommend measures to prevent a repeat anywhere else. There is also a parallel police investigation into the circumstances surrounding the tragedy.
On Thursday it emerged that the Scotland Yard investigation into the fire had concluded there were “reasonable grounds” to suspect the local council, Kensington and Chelsea, and the organisation that managed the tower block of corporate manslaughter.
- What is different about these fire safety tests to the previous set?
- What will happen to properties that fail the new tests?
- What would be the consequences of corporate manslaughter charges being brought over Grenfell?
