Proposals to fit Grenfell Tower with fire-resistant cladding were dropped by the local council in a bid to cut costs just four years before the blaze which killed 71 people.

Conservative Kensington and Chelsea council turned down a quote by a cladding company which fits nonflammable aluminium panels, claiming the £3.3million quote was too expensive.

But it has now emerged that although they went with the cheaper, combustible cladding at £1.3million, the more expensive option would have both saved lives and been cheaper in the long run.

Police and fire services believe the fire was started accidentally by a fridge-freezer located on the fourth floor. The rapid growth of the fire is thought to have been accelerated by the building's exterior cladding.

In the days after the fire, it was revealed that the type of cladding used on the 24-storey Grenfell Tower is banned in the US over fire safety fears.

The Guardian today reports that D+B Facades was asked to provide costs for solid aluminium sheets which do not spread flame, backed with mineral wool insulation which does not burn, by Kensington and Chelsea's contractor, Leadbitter.

But the council later decided that the costs for the cladding were too high and put the contract out to tender to save £1.3million, eventually awarding it to Rydon.

Rydon provided the council with a cheaper quote but used the combustible cladding which caught fire on June 14 last year, killing 71 and leaving 223 homeless.

Stephen Mackenzie, an independent fire safety expert, said that if D+B's version had been used it would have performed better in the fire.

'There would have been little or no fire spread, so the lives lost at Grenfell may have been prevented,' he said.

Survivors' group Grenfell United said today's revelations were 'heartbreaking', with Sandra Ruiz, who lost her niece in the blaze, adding: 'It is more news that tells us our loved ones would be alive today if different decisions had been taken and if the people in charge had put safety first,' said Sandra Ruiz, who lost her niece in the fire.

'We need the inquiry to get to the bottom of why plans for the refurbishment were changed and why when the community raised concerns they were ignored.'

A report carried out after the fatal fire found there was pressure from the council to cut costs on the project - despite the authority being in 'robust' financial health.

Last month a group of fire safety experts and building industry bodies urged the Government to introduce immediate changes in safety standards without waiting for the conclusion of the Grenfell Fire inquiry.

In an open letter, they called for an immediate change in the law requiring all high-rise and high-risk buildings be fitted with sprinklers and that only non-combustible cladding and insulation be installed.

They further demanded all new buildings be required have alternative escape routes.

The letter was prompted by an interim report from the ongoing Grenfell investigation leaked to the press last weak that revealed a myriad of safety failings following refurbishments between 2013 and 2016.

Among the shortcomings were the fact the cladding and insulation material was highly combustible, the windows badly fitted, front doors lacked door closers, the building had no sprinklers, escape routes were too narrow and the building was almost impossible for firefighters to access effectively. </s> A costed proposal to fit Grenfell Tower with panels that did not burn was dropped amid pressure from the Conservative council to slash the cost of the refurbishment, the Guardian has been told.

A cladding company which fits nonflammable aluminium panels claimed it provided a £3.3m quote to fit its system to the 24-storey tower in west London at the request of Leadbitter, Kensington and Chelsea’s preferred contractor in 2013.

But a few months later the council decided Leadbitter wanted to spend too much on the refurbishment and put the contract out to tender to save £1.3m. It selected Rydon, which provided a lower price but fitted the building with combustible cladding which caught fire on 14 June 2017, killing 72 people in what lawyers for victims have called a “national atrocity”.

If the solid aluminium cladding had been chosen it would have almost certainly saved lives, fire safety experts said, and it could also have been cheaper. The council’s housing arm ended up agreeing to a budget which put the cost for the plastic-filled aluminium panels and synthetic insulation which burned so fiercely at £3.5m – £200,000 more than the quote for the noncombustible materials.

The survivors’ group Grenfell United described the development as heartbreaking. “It is more news that tells us our loved ones would be alive today if different decisions had been taken and if the people in charge had put safety first,” said Sandra Ruiz, who lost her niece in the fire.

“We need the inquiry to get to the bottom of why plans for the refurbishment were changed and why when the community raised concerns they were ignored.”

Peter Hillyard, the director of D+B Facades, said his company was asked to provide costs for solid aluminium sheets which do not spread flame, backed with mineral wool insulation which does not burn. He said the thought that his company’s safer and cheaper system was not used sent a shiver down his spine.

Geoff Wilkinson, an independent fire safety expert, said that if D+B’s version had been used it would have performed better in the fire.

“There would have been little or no fire spread, so the lives lost at Grenfell may have been prevented,” said Stephen Mackenzie, an independent fire safety consultant.

The emergence of the proposal will heighten scrutiny of the procurement decisions made by the Kensington and Chelsea Tenants Management Organisation (KCTMO), which managed the building, and the council, which owned it.

Scotland Yard detectives are investigating possible manslaughter and corporate manslaughter charges. They are also looking into “any failings of duty of care owed to victims of the fire”.

Downing Street indicated that the public inquiry, which starts on 21 May, would examine the claims. A spokesperson said: “It will be a decision for the public inquiry exactly what they choose to look at, but the prime minister has set out her view that the truth of what happened must be fully established.”

D+B’s system has passed the full-scale British Standard 8414 fire test, but Grenfell was clad in a combustible synthetic insulation faced with aluminium composite panels that had a combustible polyethylene core. The system has since been shown to fail the fire test.

Researchers claim the panel system used for Grenfell had a calorific value equivalent to 12,000 litres of petrol, while the insulation foam added the equivalent of almost another 20,000 litres. The foam has also been shown to release cyanide gas when it burns and it is feared this may have contributed to the death toll.

There was sustained pressure from the council to cut costs on the project despite the authority being in “robust” financial health, according to accounts for 2014. It had £235m in usable reserves and had underspent its budget for services by £23m.

The council had originally only wanted to spend £6m on Grenfell, but later set the budget at £9.7m when it realised it also needed to replace the heating system. In July 2013, however, the council’s housing committee reported that Leadbitter, which was interested in the nonflammable cladding, was on course to spend £11.3m and so it put the contract out to tender and launched a cost-cutting programme which it called “value engineering”.

The following summer, with Rydon on board, the council’s tenants management organisation emailed the project team: “We need good costs for Cllr Feilding-Mellen [deputy leader in charge of housing].” At that point £300,000 was removed from the cladding budget and zinc panels were replaced with the aluminium composite material with the plastic core.

At least 300 other tall buildings in England are clad in similar systems to Grenfell and need to be reclad after they failed fire safety tests. The system D+B proposed for Grenfell is now being used to replace the dangerous failed cladding on several of those towers.

A leaked report prepared for detectives has already claimed that the insulation on Grenfell “provided a medium for fire to spread up, across and within sections of the facade”. The Building Research Establishment found the fire would not have spread beyond the fourth floor flat where a fridge freezer had malfunctioned if the tower had not been clad in the combustible materials.

“Leadbitter sent us quantities as directed by Studio E Architects,” Hillyard said. “Based on quantities alone our budget was £3.3m. We provided figures based on our own ‘A1 non-combustible’ cladding system and our high quality composite windows. All went quiet and the next time we heard anything was in August 2013 when the tender notice was issued.

“Kensington and Chelsea were inviting main contractors to express interest under a ‘design and build’ contract. This was the last we heard and received no further requests from Rydon, who won the contract for the work.”

Sir Martin Moore-Bick, the chair of the Grenfell Tower inquiry which opens in full on 4 June, has said he wants to find out “what decisions about the exterior of the building … were made, by whom and when”. He also wants to know whether the cladding and insulation met building regulations and standards, who was responsible if they did not and “what factors or motives influenced the decisions”.



Bouygues, which now owns Leadbitter, declined to comment on the cost plan for noncombustible cladding, citing the police investigation and public inquiry.



Rydon, the council and KCTMO also declined to comment for the same reasons. </s> Grenfell Tower: Cladding on dozens of UK apartment blocks fails fire safety tests after London inferno

Twenty-seven high-rise apartment blocks have failed fire cladding safety tests carried out in the wake of a deadly inferno at a west London tower, the British Government says.

Specifics on where the buildings were located were not given, but officials said they were in 15 council areas.

Officials had said earlier that samples of cladding panels from 14 buildings in London, Manchester and Plymouth had been found to be combustible.

The testing is being done as officials around Britain scramble to assess the safety of apartment buildings following the June 14 inferno that engulfed Grenfell Tower in west London, killing an estimated 79 people.

Combustible cladding used to insulate the tower and improve its appearance has been blamed for the rapid spread of the blaze.

Overnight on Friday (local time), about 650 homes were evacuated by the Camden Borough Council in London due to fire safety concerns.

The number of households was revised down from an earlier estimate of 800.

However, UK media reported dozens of people at the affected Chalcots Estate were refusing to leave their homes.

Carl McDowell, 31, said he took one look at the packed inflatable beds offered at a nearby leisure centre being used as a temporary shelter, and went back to his own apartment.

He said officials knocked on residents' doors on Friday night, two hours after he had heard about the evacuation on the news.

Camden Council leader Georgia Gould said if residents had not left their homes after being visited again by officials on Saturday, "it will become a matter for the fire service".

Ms Gould said the council decided to evacuate the buildings on the Chalcots Estate late on Friday after fire inspectors told officials the blocks were unsafe.

Inspectors uncovered problems with "gas insulation and door stops", which combined with the presence of flammable cladding meant residents had to leave immediately.

So far, Camden Council has been the only local authority known to have asked residents to leave as a precaution.

The flammable external cladding has been identified as the culprit in the Grenfell disaster, but fire-safety experts have said the blaze was probably due to a string of failures, not just the cladding.

Police said on Friday they were considering filing manslaughter charges over the Grenfell disaster and they were conducting a wide-ranging investigation that would look at everything that contributed to it.

The Metropolitan Police said cladding attached to the 24-storey public housing project during a recent renovation failed safety tests conducted by investigators, and they had seized documents from a number of organisations.

"We are looking at every criminal offence from manslaughter onwards," Detective Superintendent Fiona McCormack said.

"We are looking at all health and safety and fire safety offences, and we are reviewing every company at the moment involved in the building and refurbishment of Grenfell Tower."

The Government has ordered an immediate examination of the refrigerator model that started the blaze — the Hotpoint model FF175BP.

Hotpoint said it was working with authorities to examine the appliance, adding "words cannot express our sorrow at this terrible tragedy".

The Government has called on all building owners, public and private, to submit samples of cladding material used on their buildings for testing.

Police say 79 people are either dead or missing and presumed dead in the blaze, although authorities have warned the number might change and it could never be known exactly how many people died.

To encourage cooperation, Prime Minister Theresa May said the Government would not penalise any fire survivors who were in the country illegally.
The Guardian reports that the Grenfell Tower in London, which burned down last year with the loss of 71 lives, received a quote for non-flammable cladding but it was rejected for a more expensive option which exacerbated the fire.