Yes interesting that the conversation is moving already to the Tory Chair stating that it was the “residents” that did not want sprinklers as it would have been to disruptive!! Bearing in mind all local governments were supposed to be seriously considering sprinklers for high rise which the Government quickly laid at local governments doorstep as being their decision, not Governments. Fire retardant should have been mandatory or banned altogether as other countries have done. Worse it is now being stated to upgrade the cladding from plastic to fire retardant was just a few thousands of pounds.+ of course the usual contract handling charges and add ons. Not sure it will require an army of well paid public enquiry suits to work out what the original cladding specification and recommendations were on this job and what was “value engineered” out of the orginal quote and spec. I am assuming fire retardant was specified which I doubt even using the most moronic of architects and with the UK and world adverse knowledge on this material all professional life safety minded professional companies would be using fire retardant as the only choice especially with such a small on cost of just a few thousand. Some estimates put the sprinkler costs at around £200+k. So who made the fire retardant v’s plastic decision one of the third parties or the Council making the final decision. If it
is found that this fire acceleration was fire retardant material then there was a very good reason why the US and Germans banned this type of cladding on their structures. With such a small price difference the cladding company would be extremely unlikely to be using plastic instead of fire retardant material unless it
was a genuine but fatal mistake. What fills me with dread is calling a Public Enquiry which will now shut everything down to a snail pace over to many years of expensive waffling and once again lives all over the country will remain in immediate danger. My take on this is focus on the integrity and use of the cladding used and take action as appropriate for all other high rise buildings. Also rapidly install sprinklers inititally in the out of fire brigade reach comparments and common spaces and in all escape routes at least something will be happening instead of yet another talking shop on something that has already been discussed ….but nothing happened again and again!! If this another “follow the money” disaster then they can expect some very unhappy bunnies.

in going forward it’s best to not cut any corners. my advice would be to take advice from WSP Global who are world leaders in construction into what’s best practise and in reality it’s that simple
if I know what’s best practise how come Kensington council don’t ? how odd is that where someone like myself knows who’s best for tower work
ah well that’s life