1 04/07/2017, 09:08

Brexit: Grenfell Tower blood on their hands

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Richard North, 04/07/2017
Follow @eureferendum (https://twitter.com/eureferendum)

My recent evaluation of the Grenfell Tower re has brought me back into the standards business with a
vengeance reminding me why I became a Eurosceptic in the rst place, before the term was even
invented.

The issue that turned me was the implementation of Directive 71/118/EEC (http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-

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content/EN/TXT/PDF/?uri=CELEX:31971L0118&from=en) "on problems aecting trade in fresh

poultrymeat", a law which for the rst time would require in the UK poultry carcases intended for human
consumption to be eviscerated at the time of slaughter. This was so that the gut could be inspected for
signs of disease, under the supervision (at great expense) of an Ocial Veterinary Surgeon (OVS).

This apparently arcane requirement had a profound impact on the poultry trade, banning the sale of what
was called New York Dressed (NYD) poultry, the staple of the artisan poultry-producer and the small
butcher. The prohibition made no sense from a public health point of view, as immediate evisceration was
a sure means of spreading invisible contamination to every bird in the batch processed. The Directive
itself was probably a major contributory factor in the Salmonella enteritidis that we experienced in the
late 1980s and early '90s.

Then there was the personal impact. The 71/118 Directive was the rst of a series of so-called "vertical
directives" to take eect in the UK. It had the eect of downgrading the traditional role of local authority
health ocers, as responsible for food hygiene, and relegated us to the role of mere "assistants" acting
"under the responsibility and supervision of the ocial veterinarian" most of whom were neither trained
nor capable of doing the work.

As a newly qualied environmental health ocer (EHO), I had not gone through the rigours of training and
qualication merely to be relegated by a Directive from Brussels to the role of a veterinary assistant. Nor
did I agree to a measure which would have the eect of breaking up the British (and in my view superior)
system of food control, in favour of the inferior system devised on the Continent.

With fellow EHOs, we formed a campaigning group called FLAG (Food Law Action Group) and it what
through that losing the battle that we learned a great deal of this thing they called the European
Economic Community, and the powerlessness of our own MPs and government.

Most of all, though, the experience provided a powerful illustration of how this alien entity was forcing on
us systems which simply didn't work, and which were being imposed not for reasons of eciency but
simply to pursue regulatory harmonisation which in turn was being used as a tool for political integration.
My personal status as a professional was being sacriced on the altar of European political unity.

Over the years, we were to see many more examples of this phenomenon which, in practical terms,
Booker and I came to call to call the "sledgehammer to miss the nut". In purely practical terms, without
any recourse to political ideology, we came to oppose the regulatory torrent pouring out of Brussels all
on the simple grounds that, when it came to framing regulations, the Community law-making machine
was not very good at it.

You would think that, from the inception of Coal and Steel Community in 1950, and the passage of 67
years, the "communities" now under their new guise as the European Union - might have got better at
the regulation game. But they haven't. And the Grenfell Tower re shows is that the problem is in the very
nature of the EU, preventing it ever becoming an eective law-maker in its own right.

And such is the nature of this inherent inadequacy that, as the EU gets more and more integrated into our
systems of government, it will do more and more damage, causing as is the case in Grenfell Tower loss
of life. Those who pursue the EU's regulatory agenda have, in a very real sense, got blood on their hands.
With Brexit, we are getting out just in time.

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I do not reach this conclusion easily, and it is only on the back of extensive research much of which has
already been published - that I oer my results. They are not black and while but rely on a combination of
evidence and deductive reasoning, in the context of some knowledge of building construction and
materials technology.

Here, unlike some (http://eulawanalysis.blogspot.co.uk/), who are quick to mock and sneer
(https://twitter.com/StevePeers/status/875647796484775936), I don't call myself an expert. But, as an
EHO taking the diploma course I have formal training in building construction and allied matters. Part
of the course (and examination) was based on the HND building construction and technology syllabus.

Further, I have practical experience of enforcing Building Regulations, alongside building control
colleagues. I've also been trained and have some experience in enforcing re safety in houses in multiple
occupation, and am therefore familiar with the concepts of compartmentalisation and protected means of
escape. As a district EHO, I've had more experience than I ever wanted of identifying and resolving the
problems of dampness in occupied dwellings.

Turning to the issues at hand, the relevance of such matters will become apparent. But rst, we can take
it as a given that the main (and very powerful) driver behind the Grenfell Tower refurbishment focused
almost entirely as it was on energy eciency was the European Union energy policy and its commitment
(https://ec.europa.eu/info/strategy/european-semester/framework/europe-2020-
strategy_en#featuresofthetargets) to an energy eciency target of 20 percent by 2020, based on 1990
levels.

This Europe 2020 strategy was well-established in 2010 (http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ

/LexUriServ.do?uri=OJ:L:2010:308:0046:0051:EN:PDF), reected in Directive 2010/31/EU (http://eur-
lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/PDF/?uri=CELEX:32010L0031&from=EN) on the energy performance
of buildings, amending the 2002 Directive. This, however as we pointed out
(/blogview.aspx?blogno=86512) - did not specically require combustible cladding to be used, but
nevertheless the implementation of the Directive in the Building Regulations 2010
(http://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2010/2214/pdfs/uksi_20102214_en.pdf) made the use of some form of
insulation an absolute necessity, if thermal standards were to be met.

By then, government policy itself with a range of inducements (http://www.kctmo.org.uk/les/board-

meetings/130921_board_papers_28-07-2011.pdf) made it inevitable that the tower block was going to
be refurbished. Not least, under government pressure, improving energy eciency had become a key part
of Kensington and Chelsea Tenant Management Organisation's investment strategy
(http://www.kctmo.org.uk/les/161647_business_plan_2014-17.pdf), it having adopted an energy
eciency strategy (http://www.kctmo.org.uk/les/145813_link_nal_winter_2010.pdf) since August 2000.

The nal pieces that made this disaster inevitable are then highlighted, albeit unwittingly - almost to the
extent of being "smoking guns" in two technical papers by a Croatian re prevention research team.
Much of the content in the rst (/documents/Cladding%20tests.pdf) is repeated in the second
(https://bib.irb.hr/datoteka/782097.108_Banjad_Pecur_Proceedings_version_ASFE15.pdf), but I have
included both for the sake of completeness.

In the introduction to the rst paper, the authors note that the EU had dened its energy policy for overall
energy eciency and had harmonised this policy with the energy saving legislation and other
Instruments, all of which was aimed at reviving European economy (the reference to the Europe 2020

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strategy).

The overall energy eciency, the authors said, "implies reduction of energy consumption in buildings,
since buildings account for 40 percent of the EU energy use and 36 percent of its overall CO2 emissions".

What they then go on to say is crucial, and goes to the nub of the whole issue. The energy performance of
buildings, the authors say, "can primarily be improved through implementation of thermally enhanced
building envelopes", using several possible technologies.

Thermal insulation materials, they add, can be either non-combustible or combustible. But, when applied
on building facades, combustible thermal insulation materials, "can signicantly increase re load and risk
of re spread in buildings, because of reaction to re of such materials".

Thus, they conclude: "It has become obvious that re safety and energy eciency of buildings are not
mutually exclusive, and so stricter requirements for energy performance of buildings have to be applied,
together with stricter requirements for re performance of buildings".

It is that latter sentence which is the key. Given that combustible materials are used, stricter re
performance requirements should have gone hand in hand with stricter energy performance
requirements. The two should have been locked together.

Arguably, non-combustible insulation material could have been used, such as rockwool
(http://www.permarock.com/downloads/PermaRockExistingBuildingsBrochure_2.pdf ) - inert mineral bre.
This certainly would have been safe to use in Grenfell Tower and, in the manufacturer's brochure to which
I have linked (which also advertises PIR), this is the only material recommended for high-rise blocks.

The question, therefore, must be asked as to why, when a perfectly safe material was available, why it
was not used in preference to something potentially (and in fact) more dangerous. To this, there are two
answers. The rst is that the polyisocyanurate (PIR) used in Grenfell Tower was 30 percent more ecient
than the mineral bre.

In this case, to meet current and expected (http://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/818321/Grenfell-tower-re-

over-insulated-avoid-repeat-job-cladding ) future standards, the insulation was already six inches thick. To
achieve the same standard using mineral wool might have added an unacceptable thickness to the
covering on the building.

However, there was potentially a far bigger problem which would have militated against the use of
rockwool dampness and mould- a perennial problem (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ch5VorymiL4&
feature=youtu.be&t=43m25s) in high-rise blocks. The problem with mineral bre is that it absorbs water
like blotting paper. The eects are now so extensive and serious that cavity wall injection is being likened
(http://www.telegraph.co.uk/nance/property/advice/11411880/Could-the-cavity-wall-insulation-scandal-
rival-PPI.html) in severity to the PPI mis-selling scandal.

Although reports are mostly conned to retrot cavity insulation (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-

4143922/1-5million-homes-blighted-damp-cowboy-builders.html), in principle cladding systems are just as
vulnerable to water ingress - with the added problem that inspection and remedies are more dicult and
expensive. The problems, nevertheless, are well enough known for BRE to issue a cautionary note
(https://www.bre.co.uk/lelibrary/pdf/projects

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/swi/UnintendedConsequencesRoutemap_v4.0_160316_nal.pdf).

A partial x is to t a vapour barrier on the cold side of the mineral wool, but it is dicult to get secure
seal, and the need then to prevent condensation on the surface requires a ventilated cavity, with all the
problems that entails (something in common with PIR).

Thus, the technical problems with rockwool are such that the product is largely unsuitable for high-rise. As
a result, speciers had been adopting expanded polystyrene but, after a series ofhigh-prole res
(https://www.matec-conferences.org/articles/matecconf/pdf/2013/07/matecconf_isfsf13_02005.pdf) in
China, Dubai, France and elsewhere, it was evident that this material presented unacceptable risks.

It was here that PIR came into its own. Not only is it a more ecient insulating material than mineral bre,
it is impermeable: it will not absorb water. When Celotex came up with an apparently new variant of PIR,
claimed to be suitable for over 18 metres, it must have been treated as manna from heaven.

But what we see in the Croatian papers is a further acknowledgement that, to ensure re safety when
combustible materials are to be used, a new tougher re safety test is needed. The research team
recommended BS8414 for high-rise buildings.

So obvious and well-known was the need for a new test regime that the European Diisocyanurate and
Polyol Producers Association (http://www.isopa.org/media/1090/facade61.pdf) - the trade body
representing PIR manufacturers was recommending this in 2003, when a new German standard
(DIN-4102) was being investigated (currently blocked by the German Fire Brigade Union
(https://translate.google.co.uk/translate?hl=en&sl=de&u=http://www.feuertrutz.de/normentwurf-e-din-
4102-20-vfdb-legt-einspruch-ein/150/40593/&prev=search) (since April 2016) as being too weak, a
situation conrmed (http://www.eurima.org/uploads/ModuleXtender/Publications
/92/2012-07-02_BRE_Report_Final_275194_issue_2.pdf) by the UK's Building Research Establishment
(BRE).

Why this so rmly puts the ball in the EU's court is that the EU itself has created a situation where
combustible material was going to be used as a matter of necessity to satisfy its energy eciency
demands. This is in the context where, as the Croatian team points out there was an indissoluble link
between energy performance and re performance of buildings, when it was already known () that the
EU-mandated test standard was wholly inadequate.;

In fact, the sequence of events is damning. As far back as 1988, development of harmonised international
and European testing approaches for "facades" was initiated, under the leadership of the Leipzig Fire
Testing Authority. Discussions were begun to evaluate re performance characteristics, with a mandate
issued to CENELEC in 2004 (the precursor to a new harmonised standard). But work was stopped in 2005
and although the Commission later agreed that work should continue - with talks starting up again in
2007 - after a succession of meetings, discussions and reports, there has been no progress on a new
standard, 13 years after formal instructions were issued to produce one.

Under these circumstances, with the European Commission fully aware that re testing standards were
decient, it should never have made higher energy eciency standards in buildings mandatory. To ensure
safety, it should have addressed the deciencies in the testing regime at the same time. Alongside
making tougher thermal eciency standards mandatory, it should have mandated new, tougher tests
based on system testing of the type pioneered by the BRE.

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And as we have seen, contrary to some claims (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-40479164), it is not

the Building Regulations, per se that are at fault, but the testing regime. and in the UK, that problem
seems to have been emerging since 1991 (http://www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/news/liverpool-news/should-
knowsley-heights-blaze-been-13271446).

Putting this together, had the EU made the use of enhanced insulation in buildings conditional on the
application of tougher re tests which was within its power to do instead of blocking national attempts
to make such testing mandatory, then one can state, without equivocation, that the Grenfell Tower re
would not have occurred. The evidence is there for those that wish to see it.

As to why the EU did not act, one can see that it has been obsessed, to the exclusion of all else, with its
climate change targets. As such, with so much eort going into pursuing the targets and creating the
legislation and policy environment needed, it simply didn't have the resource (or the political will) to deal
with the complex issues of re safety at the same time.

Therefore, faced with this conict, the EU appears to have done what it always does it
compartmentalised and focused on what considered most important to it. It left member states to muddle
on with re safety in a system it had confused and undermined.

In the past, such a strategy has served the EU well. When the problems of its own making emerge (as
they did with food safety and contaminated poultry), it could always claim that "more Europe" was
needed, and make another power grab.

Following the Grenfell Tower re, the Commission has been uncharacteristically quiet, perhaps in this
febrile climate not wishing to draw attention to the extent of its involvement in framing building
standards. It is this silence which enables the Guardian (https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2017/jun
/20/deadlier-than-terrorism-right-fatal-obsession-red-tape-deregulation-grenfell-tower) wrongly to claim
that "regulations on building materials and re safety are a matter for national governments".

So, the silence of the guilty prevails. But, after this long journey, I have no hesitation in saying that the EU
created the conditions which gave rise to the Grenfell Tower re, and then failed to take the necessary
action to prevent it happening. To that extent, the EU is as guilty as any party for the re.

Given the nature and the structure of the EU, it probably could have done nothing other than what it did
which is why it cannot be trusted with responsibility for making our laws. Only national government have
the resources and the need to look at legislation holistically. The sooner we are back to a fully-
functioning, national legislature, the better.

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