Fire Safety in Imperial College London’s buildings in a post-Grenfell landscape

Woodward Halls, one of our higher rise buildings

Head of Fire and Safety John Field explains how legislation affects College properties and actions to ensure our buildings remain safe and compliant.

On 14 June 2017, a fire broke out in the 24-storey Grenfell Tower in North Kensington and burned for 60 hours. 72 people died, two later in hospital, with more than 70 injured and 223 escaping.

The Grenfell fire has since been the subject of multiple complex investigations by the police, coroner’s inquests, an independent review (chaired by Imperial College alumnus, Dame Judith Hackitt) and a public inquiry.

Issues investigated have been thematic, with the inquiry’s remit “the circumstances surrounding the fire", including its causes, how it spread to the whole building, and the adequacy of the regulations and safety measures in place; therefore management of the building has also been subject to scrutiny.

Official investigations revealed multiple contributing factors and failings, which are being addressed through legislation to prevent a future tragedy of this type and scale.

Head of Fire and Safety, John Field, explains how the legislation affects College properties and the actions being taken to ensure our buildings continue to remain safe and compliant.

College has high rise premises (18 metres or more) which provide student accommodation.  College’s two high rise undergraduate residences are Woodward and Kemp Porter in North Acton. Woodward is 18 floors. Kemp Porter is 30 floors. The commercial arm, the Investment Property Office (IPO) controls the graduate residence GradPad - Griffon Studios, along with other private residences that are high rise.

New definitions of these premises under the Building Safety Act are ‘higher risk buildings’ but this is purely on height, not necessarily because of the safety measures that are in place.

Says John: “For reassurance, our buildings are not Grenfell.”

Cladding is the single most well-known aspect of the Grenfell tragedy, and it is worth remembering that inadequacies in the installation of the cladding were also contributing factors.

Woodward did have the type of cladding used on Grenfell, Aluminium Composite Materials, now removed.

Control of safety measures and building management

Tenancy of our properties is also different to Grenfell. Imperial owns and controls the entirety of the buildings and the fire measures in place, and students can’t take occupation without a safety induction.  

Summarises John: “There is full 24-hour concierge / security staffing - when an alarm activates they respond and deal with it. There are also wardens, sub wardens and deputy wardens to assist evacuations.

“All-out buttons are installed in Woodward and Kemp Porter - if we wanted to evacuate everybody from all blocks, we can just simply push one button.

“Automatic opening vents mean that any smoke that's in the corridors will be sucked out through the top of the building. The buildings are fitted with sprinklers, so any fire that might occur will be suppressed; we carry out fire door inspections. There's compartmentation within the buildings - surveyed to make sure that they could withstand a fire. We also have building managers who are responsible for the buildings and have oversight and village management.

“Crucially, there is a student voice, if there are any concerns by the students, there are lots of avenues through which to air them.”

Griffon Studios is slightly different accommodation, therefore without sprinklers. It has slightly different high-pressure laminates, however these are not as combustible, and they have fire separation. In any case they are being removed for everyone’s reassurance.

Post-Grenfell legislation

Legislation resulting from the recommendations of the various investigations is key in preventing tragedies like Grenfell in the future.

In December 2022 the Fire Safety Act 2021 came into force. This clarified the elements of a building that must be considered when completing a Fire Risk Assessment. Prior to the act the Fire Team had already been assessing all our buildings, updating the Fire Risk Assessment documents to cater for any new requirements. Fire Safety Advisor in the team, Lucy Cowell, is an accredited Registered Fire Risk Assessor through the Institute of Fire Safety Managers, and the Fire Risk Assessment document has also received external scrutiny.

Further legislation, the Fire Safety (England) Regulation 2022, came into force in January. It requires all high-rise buildings to have floor plans and details of firefighting facilities onsite to hand and submitted electronically to the Fire and Rescue Service. Checks must be made on these firefighting facilities once a month, and apartment doors must be checked annually. For buildings taller than 11 metres, checks on doors within corridors must take place every three months. John says, “It is a complex piece of legislation with different requirements depending on the height of the building.”

The Building Safety Act 2022 is a further complex piece of legislation which sets out standards for higher risk buildings (at least 18 metres high or seven storeys) from the design stage to the already occupied stage. The Health & Safety Executive (HSE) must be notified of the existence of Woodward, Kemp Porter, Griffon Studios, and the private residences which come under this legislation by this October and then be issued with a Building Safety Case from April 2024. HSE will then issue a licence in recognition.

This Act creates the new roles of accountable person and principle accountable person. These roles involve the person who owns the building, and the person who maintains the building. Therefore, many College staff must be trained, by the Fire Team, for these roles for which they are responsible under the act.

The Act might have implications for College builds in the future such as registration, planning processes etc. As examples John says: “For new higher-risk buildings prior to occupation, you'll have to apply for a licence. We don't necessarily have that type of new building yet,” adding: “The Mayor of London has made it policy, because every special type of building has to go through him under the Act, that residential buildings over 30 metres will now require two staircases.”