Fire Safety – updates and campaign
Over 140 households living in Towers 1 & 3 are concerned that building investigations deem their homes are not compliant with the requirements of Building Regulation 135 (BR135). This is due to insufficient internal fire-stopping and cladding insulation, which must be rectified. We are asking all residents in Queensland Road to help us in pressurising Newlon to give us a timeframe for starting the work to make our homes safe. We are asking Newlon for reassurance that they will pursue Kier, the original builders to pay for the work which wasn't done correctly, and apply for government grants in order to avoid each homeowner to pay thousands of pounds to make the flats safe in case of a fire on the scale of Grenfell.
We are also finding it impossible to sell our flats as banks/building societies will not provide a mortgage without the correct fire safety certificates.
Please sign the petition at:
The Residents Association has collated some information here, both from Newlon and our own research:
If you have information/documents not listed here, please share them with us via email.
Overall tracker
Some volunteers are keeping a spreadsheet on all the correspondence, the tracker is https://drive.google.com/file/d/1CKSwoTYK7-NDe8Wv5VpZC37Ms3hbtv52/view?usp=sharing
Correspondence
Newlon letter: Queensland Road update 17-03-21.pdf
Tower 3 FRA (Fire Risk Assessment) dated 21 July 2020
Tower 1 FRA (Fire Risk Assessment) dated 1 April 2020
Newlon response to petition 2 July 2020
Communication with local MP Jun/Jul 2020
Research by residents Jun 2020
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Details of Government grant for remedial works (application deadline is 31 July 2020)
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Materials used in cladding info by the installer: Cladding CGL Facades
Update Newlon Jun 2020
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Queensland Road 1-3 19 June 2020 update.pdf – latest info
Update Newlon May 2020
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1 Queensland road Cover letter QFSM 4 May 2020.pdf – Latest letter from QFSM which accompanies the official form below
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EWS1 form 1 and 3 Queensland Road Development 4 May 2020.pdf – Form where it shows we have the lowest safety rate: B2
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1 QR residents letter Newlon 4 May 2020.pdf – Letter from Newlon
Update Newlon Oct 2019
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1_Queensland_Rd_Certificate 31 Oct2019.pdf – Initial info from QFSM (an external fire safety organisation)
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1_Queensland_Rd_NHT_letter 31 Oct2019.pdf – Letter from Newlon 31 Oct
Info Newlon re Cladding
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Cladding Newlon Jun 2019.pdf – Newlon doc confirming our cladding is okay and not the type under investigation, sent upon query by mortgage providers
Original reassurance Jun 2017
Fire safety info Jun2017 Newlon.docx – original confirmation from Newlon via email + resident query and reply, that our cladding is not the ACFM type used in the Grenfell fire:
"For information the Creaton terracotta cladding is for the purposes of the Building Regulations, non-combustible.
Its British Board of Agrement (BBA) certificate confirms this as follows:
7.1 The tiles and aluminium support rails are non-combustible and may be regarded as having a Class 0 or ‘low risk’ fire rating in accordance with the national Building Regulations.
The Aluminium sheet cladding [Tower One] (as distinct from Aluminium facing bonded to a core material as used at Grenfell Tower) is also considered to be non-combustible.
As part of our review of all our higher rise and complex buildings following the Grenfell Tower fire we will be seeking additional technical data from the cladding supplier/ main contractor and if we identify any issues we will of course inform residents and take appropriate action."