The council faces spending as much as £26 million to deal with fire safety concerns at a landmark tower block in Brighton.
The news emerged as tenants – who were shut out with no notice on Friday – were told that a fire could spread through the entire building in 30 to 60 minutes.
A safe building should be able to withstand a fire for 120 minutes – or 90 minutes with sprinklers, according to a fire safety report.
Scores of angry tenants of New England House, a key business building for high-tech and digital firms, went to a meeting at Brighton Town Hall yesterday (Monday 11 November).
Some of their anger resulted from learning that the council had been warned about the need to tackle fire safety at the building years ago – at least as early as July 2020.
At Hove Town Hall, tenants heard Brighton and Hove City Council chief executive Jess Gibbons and the Labour deputy leader of the council Jacob Taylor apologise.
Other senior officials and councillors were present for the heated meeting – and today the building was due to reopen.
The council said: “Brighton and Hove City Council has shared extracts from a fire engineer’s report with the business tenants detailing significant fire safety risks at New England House.
“This report necessitated the council’s decision to temporarily close the building at short notice on Friday, 8 November.
“The fire engineer’s report, commissioned directly by the council, provides a comprehensive analysis of the fire safety issues within the building.
“The key conclusion of the report is that the level of risk is deemed ‘intolerable’, requiring immediate action.
“The report highlights potential fire spread and compartmentation breaches, raising serious concerns about the fire safety of the premises.”
Key points from the fire engineer’s report include
- Many fire safety issues cannot be adequately addressed with current control measures.
- Compartmentation of some business units is compromised, with over 1,000 inadequacies documented.
- No fire protection for staircases, posing serious risks if the façade fails during evacuation.
- Current fire detection does not cover all necessary areas.
- Inadequate arrangements for evacuating disabled individuals.
- Electrical installation has exceeded its useful life (and there are) concerns about exposed distribution boards with combustible materials contained in tenant areas.
- Firefighting provisions are unsuitable and difficult to manage.
- Many fire risk assessments within individual businesses are not adequate.
Councillor Taylor said: “I want to offer the council’s sincerest apology to all those affected. This is not a decision the council took lightly or without consideration for the tenants.
“However, given the information we received from the fire engineer’s report, it was a difficult yet necessary action to keep people safe.
“We completely understand the disruption, confusion, and anxiety this temporary closure has caused.
“The council remains dedicated to supporting the tenants of New England House and is working diligently to address the findings and implement the required safety measures to reopen the building as soon as possible.”
An internal audit is to look at the millions of pounds allocated to New England House – about £10 million by some estimates – with a report to go to the council’s Audit, Standards and General Purposes Committee.
Tenants have also been promised greater transparency as the council contemplates not just how it deals with an ageing building but how it should rebuild its relationships.
If it had been maintained and upgraded over the years it would be done already. This is a failing in the councils property mis-management.
BHCC are serial incompetents.
Officers simply don’t do their jobs – too busy WFH.
Nobody at the Council is ever accountable for their failures
Upgraded with what money? There’s an argument to be made that the overall bill MIGHT be lower if action was taken earlier but the largest items (compartmentation stands out) would need to be done as one big job for best value and the cost would be (as the article says) millions.
This building is an eyesore and detracts from the surrounding area. Should be demolished and replaced with something more appropriate. Surely it’s not worth spending millions on. Relocate the businesses and then sell this site.
I have to agree. It does look terrible and is clearly unsafe. I’m just so sorry for all of the people who have been impacted. I wonder where they can relocate to.
That fire safety report made the council’s hands very much tied with the closure.
Aging buildings that are reaching end of life is becoming a bit more of a prominent theme in several areas. Whitehawk comes to mind with the recent discussion around the high rises.
Modernisation and regeneration seems like something that will need to be budgeted for in the long-term for Brighton citywide.
There are other ways of doing this as well with some collaborative development; gives access to funds that may not be accessible for local authorities.
Bulldoze it. Build something similar but taller and less ugly like what’s next door
I would say demolish. That building has ‘sick building syndrome’. I went in once, it is just dark and depressing it made me feel quite depressed; …. horrible just bulldoze it…
Before spending lots on money on it – has it been surveyed for RAAC to see if it is going to be condemned anyway ?