Cladding a fire risk on 30 Melbourne buildings
At least 30 buildings in Melbourne are still rated as fire risks or “non-compliant” because they have cladding panels similar to those that accelerated a high-rise fire in the city in 2014 and are suspected of contributing to London’s deadly tower inferno.
The list includes 17 buildings found to be non-compliant after a 2015 audit by the Victorian Building Association and a further 13 found to be below code in a subsequent audit that focused on the builder of another high-risk apartment.
The Lacrosse tower fire in Melbourne’s Docklands in November 2014 sparked the first audit of 170 building permits in the city after the Melbourne Fire Brigade found the cheap cladding Alucobest — an aluminium composite panel — contributed to the speed of the fire climbing from the 6th floor to the 21st.
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Nobody was injured or killed in the Lacrosse fire because above-code sprinklers helped keep the fire outside. At least 58 people died in London’s Grenfell Tower building blaze, at least partly because it did not have sprinklers. The VBA found 51% of the 170 buildings surveyed were non-compliant and “associated with a risk-to-life safety from a possible future external cladding fire event in a high-rise building” and passed details of these buildings to the City of Melbourne’s surveyors, who worked to bring them up to code.
More than two years later, some of these permits are still with these city surveyors as they are not yet rated compliant.
“A total of 17 buildings are currently subject to further investigation, with a number close to being satisfactorily resolved,” a City of Melbourne spokesman tells The Australian.
“Responsibility for remedial work rests with the building owners and body corporates. The City of Melbourne is working with all relevant building owners and body corporates to ensure remedial works to those buildings are taken as necessary.
The public needs to know what is being done to prevent cladding products being used in buildings around Australia in situations that they are not designed for
“For example, this may include installation of other fire mitigations instead of removing the cladding, and this would be subject to detailed assessment by fire engineers. None of these buildings (has) been issued with any enforcement action.”
He says the city is satisfied the buildings are safe to occupy.
NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian says her state agencies are “working with a sense of urgency” on the issue, despite being aware of risks for years.
“We have been working very hard behind the scenes since the tragedy in London,” she says.
Federal Labor will call today for an urgent inquiry into building cladding material to ensure a similar disaster to the Grenfell Tower fire in London does not happen in Australia.
Bill Shorten says the Grenfell inferno is a “shocking tragedy” and the opposition will ask a Senate inquiry into nonconforming building products to hold an urgent hearing.
“These tragedies must be prevented from occurring,” the Opposition Leader says. “I don’t want to see a similar tragedy here.”
We have been working very hard behind the scenes since the tragedy in London
The chairman of the Senate economics references committee, Labor senator Chris Ketter, says people have a right to “live in homes and buildings that are safe”.
“The Turnbull government is responsible for the national building code; it needs to step up,” he says. “The public needs to know what is being done to prevent cladding products being used in buildings around Australia in situations that they are not designed for.”
Senator Ketter says he will call several witnesses, including from the Australian Building Codes Board and the Metropolitan Fire Brigade.
– with Joe Kelly
This article originally appeared on www.theaustralian.com.au/property.
