Value Engineering: Scenes from the Grenfell Inquiry

Richard Norton-Taylor, Nicholas Kent

• Publisher: Methuen Drama
• Year: 2021
• ISBN:
  9781350268272
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Media & Performing Arts
• Subtopic: Theatre Playwriting

Value Engineering: Scenes from the Grenfell Inquiry is a verbatim reconstruction of the Grenfell Tower Public Inquiry. Using only the words spoken at the Inquiry, the play deals predominantly with Part 2 which ran between January 2020 - July 2021 in which evidence was heard from those responsible for the disastrous refurbishment of Grenfell Tower before the tragic fire. Edited by Richard Norton-Taylor and directed by Nicholas Kent, the team behind previous testimonial plays The Colour of Justice: The Stephen Lawrence Inquiry and Bloody Sunday: Scenes from the Saville Inquiry, this edited verbatim account of the Grenfell Inquiry is aimed at giving the public an overview and access to some of the most important evidence. The play shows how companies involved in the refurbishment of the Tower conspired to cover up what they knew about the dangerous and life-threatening materials used to refurbish the Tower. It also reveals the incompetence and neglect of local authorities. Staged in Notting Hill Tabernacle in October 2021, this features the full text of the play alongside additional information on the context of Grenfell and the ongoing inquiry.

PHASE 1

DISPLAYED ON SCREEN AS AUDIENCE TAKE THEIR SEATS

This play is made entirely from spoken evidence that was given under oath to the Grenfell Tower Inquiry between November 2017 and March 2021.

The only change that has been made to that evidence is that the names, ages, gender, relationships, floors and flat numbers of some of the Bereaved, Survivors and Residents of Grenfell Tower mentioned in the Inquiry have been anonymised in order to protect their privacy.

From the evidence of BARBARA LANE, chartered fire safety engineer, Director and Fellow of Fire Safety Engineering, Ove Arup & Partners Ltd.

(18 JUNE 2018 Phase 1)

ChairmanGood morning, everyone. We’re going to begin by hearing from expert witnesses. Yes, Ms Grange.

Kate GrangeCan you give the inquiry your full name?

LaneDr Barbara Lane.

GrangeDr Lane will be introducing key aspects of the building and its history and will identify the fire and safety measures which were present in the tower at the time of the fire.

ChairmanIf you would like to stand or sit, you do whatever is most comfortable.

LaneI’ll move around a bit. Grenfell Tower is a twenty-five-storey building. Completed in 1974, [it] is owned by Kensington and Chelsea Borough. [It] was part of their provision of social housing. The management [of the tower] was devolved in 1996 to the Kensington and Chelsea Tenant Management Organisation – [the TMO] . . . Grenfell Tower is 67.3 metres tall. Originally it contained 120 one- and two-bedroom flats. There were six dwellings per floor on twenty of the twenty-four floors. (Slide shown.) The other four storeys being used for non residential purposes such as nurseries, offices and a community health centre. It was originally designed to house up to 600 people. The original external wall of Grenfell Tower consisted of exposed concrete surfaces and glazing. The external wall of the building was therefore non-combustible. (Slide shown.)

I will now set out the fire safety requirements for high-rise residential buildings in England, and specifically the design requirement to provide a stay-put strategy.

During a single flat fire, the occupants of that flat evacuate and all other occupants are safe if they remain where they are. But high-rise residential buildings must be designed on the basis that fire fighting does not occur from outside.

I consider the building’s stay-put strategy to have failed at 1.26 am.

The Building Regulations state: ‘The external envelope of a building should not provide a medium for fire spread. The use of combustible materials in the cladding system and extensive cavities may present such a risk.

In a building with a storey eighteen [metres] or more above ground level any insulation product used in the external wall should be of limited combustibility.’

Between 2012 and 2016, [the Tenant Management Organisation], the TMO, commissioned a major refurbishment of Grenfell Tower. It consisted of a cladding system, which comprised a cavity containing thermal insulation, and an outer layer formed with rainscreen cladding panels.

The rainscreen outer layer at Grenfell Tower were aluminium [composite material] sheets [ACM] either side of a polyethylene core. Polyethylene is a combustible material.

From the evidence of LUKE BISBY, head of the research institute for infrastructure and environment at the University of Edinburgh and co-editor-in-chief of the technical and scientific publication Fire Safety Journal.

(20 JUNE 2018)

He stands at a lectern as he gives his presentation.

Millett Professor Bisby, you are a Professor of Fire and Structures within the School of Engineering at the University of Edinburgh. You are [also] a Co-editor in Chief of the Fire Safety Journal. Thank you very much Professor Bisby, please do now go ahead and give your presentation.

Bisby (standing at a lectern, he takes a drink from a glass of water) It is my hope that my report will help you, sir, as well as experts and lay people alike, [to] begin to understand how and why the Grenfell Tower fire spread so rapidly and so extensively, with devastating effect, over all four faces of the building.

My focus is therefore on the cladding materials, and the rapid and extensive external fire spread. Two particular aspects are central to what occurred: flammability and fire spread.

Flammable gases are transported into the flame by a buoyant flow due to the fact that hot gases rise. As the flammable gases are transported into the flame, they mix with oxygen which is available from the surrounding air.

The temperature of material such as polymer foam insulation will increase rapidly when heated, generally resulting in short times to ignition.

Reynobond PE [cladding] was used extensively at Grenfell Tower. [PE]: Polyethylene is highly flammable. Upon exposure to heat, polyethylene will melt and drip, possibly flowing whilst burning or generating flaming droplets. The media compare the polyethylene material within the ACM rainscreen cassettes at Grenfell Tower to petrol or diesel.

He displays video slides whilst he describes the following.

The ACMs [cladding] at Grenfell Tower were a product called Reynobond PE, where the PE stands for polyethylene. This was and is manufactured and sold by Arconic Architectural Products.

This image shows the corner of a Reynobond PE panel taken from Grenfell Tower after the fire and provided to me by the Metropolitan Police Service. It is comprised of a 0.5-millimetre thick aluminium outer surface, which is bonded to a 3-millimetre thick polyethylene filler material and a 0.5-millimetre thick aluminium inner surface.

Next, I’d like to look at the PIR foam insulation products that were used at Grenfell Tower, (He displays another video slide.) where PIR stands for polyisocyanurate. Some of these products are also visible in this image in the locations where the ACM cassettes have been damaged or removed by the fire.

Short blackout. Slide: ‘The afternoon session’.

Millett Mr Chairman, I just ought to repeat, if I can, the trigger warning: that this afternoon’s presentation from Professor Bisby will contain a large number of images and videos depicting the flame spread on the night of the fire. Some of the videos include audio of people who witnessed the fire and show some of their distress as events unfolded.

ChairmanYeah. Thank you very much.

Millett Thank you, Professor.

Bisby Thanks very much. During this part of my presentation I will describe in general terms the spread of the fire to and over the cladding at Grenfell Tower. The fire was first reported at 12.54 am on 14 June 2017 within the kitchen of flat 16 on level 4 of Grenfell Tower. Over the course of 15 minutes or so the fire burned within the kitchen of flat 16. The fire was observed to have spread to the cladding by about 1.09 am.

The fire then spread vertically upwards on the east face of Grenfell Tower, breaking into flats on the floors above flat 16 as it spread. It took approximately 20 minutes for the fire to spread from level 4 to the roof.

The initial 999 call that was made by Mr Kebede, the occupant of flat 16, who first discovered smoke within his kitchen. The call was made at 12.54 [am].

[The] first intervention by the London Fire Brigade occurs at 01.14 [am], at least 5 minutes after what I consider to be the first clear evidence of fire having spread to the external cladding.

In a moment I will play a video that was captured outside Grenfell Tower at about 1.09 am. During this video you will see falling debris from the lower left corner of the kitchen window of flat 16. I have concluded that this falling debris is likely to be polyethelene originating from within the ACM rainscreen cassettes. This video is the earliest evidence that show...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Value Engineering: Scenes from the Grenfell Inquiry
• Cast
• Creatives
• Timeline
• Glossary
• Contents
• Value Engineering
• Phase 1
• Act Two
• The Evidence
• The Residents
• The Lawyers
• eCopyright