Tag Archives: Building cladding

Camden Council has relaunched its search for contractors to replace cladding at the Chalcots estate. The contractor will replace cladding, which has already been removed, on four towers. Work will also include replacing the windows on the towers, removing the flat roofs, replacing the brickwork on the ground and first…

A cladding expert has told the Grenfell Tower Inquiry that manufacturers and contractors should have been less “complacent” before the 2017 tragedy because of a number of widely reported fires in other countries in the years leading up to it. Jonathan Sakula said the combustibility of building systems similar to…

Concerns have been raised that material and equipment shortages could threaten the government’s drive to remove ACM cladding from buildings. Last week, the UK’s housing minister reiterated plans to remove all the aluminium composite material (ACM) cladding, the kind used on the Grenfell Tower, from residential buildings above 18 metres…

Wates has been awarded a £50m contract to carry out emergency works on London buildings that are considered dangerous. Wates will be on call 24 hours a day, 365 days a year to carry out emergency shoring, demolition and remedial works to dangerous buildings and structures for Dartford and Spelthorne…

A scheme for construction professionals to anonymously report problems will now also cover fire-safety issues. The Collaborative Reporting for Safer Structures scheme (CROSS) is jointly operated by the Institutions of Civil and Structural Engineers and compiles safety reports submitted confidentially by professionals. Reports “typically relate to concerns, near misses or…

A fund manager has offloaded its stake in Kingspan over concerns about the company’s governance in the wake of the Grenfell Tower Inquiry. WHEB, which calls itself a “positive impact investor” in low-carbon areas of the economy, had held shares in the materials firm since May 2014. It said the…

A Grenfell Tower expert witness has signed a legal agreement not to speak to his son, head of fire safety at Kensington and Chelsea Council, about anything related to the inquiry. It has emerged that Colin Todd, described by a lawyer representing the council this week as “probably the country’s…

Bellway has said it is having difficulty sourcing cladding specialists as it tries to carry out £132m of building-safety remediation. Changes to the scope of remediation works combined with rising labour and material costs due to shortages has made it hard to establish the full cost of fixing 24 of…

Kingspan has been questioned over whether it deliberately misled MPs and the public over testing of non-combustible cladding systems in 2018. At the Grenfell Tower Inquiry yesterday, Kingspan director of technical, marketing and internal affairs Adrian Pargeter was probed over a series of tests the firm undertook in 2018 on…

Contractors found to be professionally negligent could be banned from public sector works under new rules being considered. Prime minister Boris Johnson told MPs on Wednesday that the government was looking at bringing in the new rules in response to the Grenfell Tower fire. In November 2019, housing secretary Robert…