The Architects’ Journal Architecture News & Buildings
In interviews over the weekend, Gove said ambiguity in Approved Document B – which sets out how to comply with Part B of the Building Regulations – regarding cladding safety had led to exploitation of the system.
His statements are a marked a change from the evidence given to the Grenfell Inquiry in 2021 by a lawyer acting for the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities.
The lawyer had insisted: ‘The department’s view is that the meaning of the regulations, and of Approved Document B, read together with the regulations, was sufficiently clear at the time of the refurbishment of the tower that no competent professional, acting in good faith, should have misunderstood or misapplied the statutory requirements.’
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He had added: ‘A competent professional would have taken appropriate advice in case of uncertainty, not least where the issue involved fire safety.’
But, speaking to The Sunday Times, Gove said there had been a ‘system of regulation that was faulty’.
He went on: ‘The government did not think hard enough, or police effectively enough, the whole system of building safety. Undoubtedly.
‘I believe that [the guidance] was so faulty and ambiguous that it allowed unscrupulous people to exploit a broken system in a way that led to tragedy.’
Before its amendment in 2019, Approved Document B suggested that cladding products with a Class 0 rating would comply with a requirement not to have combustible external walls. However, Class 0 is measure of surface fire spread, not of limited combustibility. The aluminium composite panels that were primarily responsible for fire spread at Grenfell Tower had a Class 0 rating due to their aluminium surface but their plastic core made them highly combustible.
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Gove, speaking to the BBC’s Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg programme, added: ‘Nobody needs to tell me how desperately important it was to deal with all the issues that were provoked by the fire at Grenfell Tower.
‘It was a horrendous tragedy. A tragedy for everyone involved, the people who lost their lives and people in that community but it also had ramifications that have gone on for years not been properly addressed.’
Part of the government’s drive towards ‘righting the wrongs’ of the past is a new six-week deadline handed to developers to sign legal agreements committing them to pay to repair unsafe buildings.
These contracts will apply to companies that have developed or refurbished buildings 11m tall or above in the past 30 years.
Legislation will be brought forward in the spring, giving the secretary of state powers to prevent developers from ‘operating freely in the housing market’ if they fail to sign and comply with the remediation contract.
Gove said: ‘Too many developers, along with product manufacturers and freeholders, have profited from these unsafe buildings and have a moral duty to do the right thing and pay for their repair.
‘In signing this contract, developers will be taking a big step towards restoring confidence in the sector and providing much-needed certainty to all concerned.’
He concluded: ‘There will be nowhere to hide for those who fail to step up to their responsibilities. I will not hesitate to act and they will face significant consequences.’
‘There will be nowhere to hide for those who fail to step up to their responsibilities. I will not hesitate to act and they will face significant consequences.’ I hope Gove also feels the same about his mate Michelle Mone.
For the 1st time Gove is now accepting Gov. responsibility for some deficiencies in the regulatory system leading to Grenfell. So why this announcement now when this has been blindingly obvious for so long?
Is offering this small concession part of a negotiating tactic in efforts to pressure contractors to quickly sign the contract being proposed by Government which will effectively transfer Gov. risk to those contractors?
Gove must know that when the Grenfell enquiry reports it is likely to be damning of the whole Gov. neoliberal reconfiguration of the construction industry instigated since Thatcher.
If in the interim, he succeeds in transferring the risk to contractors and because so much of the risk may by then have been seen to have been successfully transferred, the wider systemic issues won’t then be seen to need reform and focus will be diverted from the political choices and context that are at the root of so many of the problems. If so then we will be seeing the buck being passed again.
Well spotted. Is the hidden lead in the timing that the govt are trying to bind the developers into contracts before the Grenfell report nails the govt to the yardarm and gives a contractor class action powerful grounds to compel the govt to pay for a far greater share? The report must surely major on the Govt refusal to upgrade legislation after serious warnings, and conflict of interest at the BRE arising from making it privately funded.