Only one Bristol tower block installed with sprinklers nearly four years since council pledge
Bristol City Council has installed sprinkler systems in just one tower block in the city, since announcing a five-year programme to install them at 59 tower blocks almost four years ago.
In January 2019, council chiefs announced a £7m plan to improve tower block safety in the wake of the 2017 Grenfell tower fire.
At the time they said the project would take five years to complete the installation inside flats, prioritising blocks with just one staircase and those with a higher proportion of elderly residents or those with access issues.
On Tuesday (8 November), council chiefs announced they would 'accelerate' the programme following a number of fires in tower blocks in the past couple of months.
But the delays have been criticised by residents’ groups.
When the sprinkler scheme was announced, council chiefs had already completed a programme to install sprinkler systems in the bin stores of tower blocks. The roll-out of sprinkler systems in individual flats was the next step in increasing fire safety measures in the authority’s tower blocks.
The plan was to spend £300,000 in the first year installing the sprinklers in one block of flats as a pilot project, and then spend £1 million doing more tower blocks in 2020/21, and then £2 million more in 2021/22 and another £2 million this financial year, with more installations next year and up to 2024.
What happened to the plan?
The residents of the tower block chosen to be the pilot project in 2019, Castlemead House in Brislington, refused to allow the council to install sprinklers in their flats. It is understood the council’s housing chiefs spent most of 2019 trying and failing to persuade them. Then the initial pilot scheme was abandoned.
When the Covid pandemic hit in March 2020 no sprinklers had been installed anywhere, and lockdown led to further delays.
In the autumn of 2020, a second tower block was selected for the pilot scheme - Butler House in St George, an 11-storey tower block with just one staircase.
The council issued a contract for the installation of sprinkler systems inside flats out for tender in September, 2020 and the contractor was hired to fit the sprinklers over the next few months, with the contract running for 12 months from November 2020 until the end of October 2021.
Butler House remains the only tower block in the city to have a sprinkler system in each flat.
A spokesperson from Bristol City Council said: "The pilot at Butler House worked well and we have learnt lessons regarding the process of implementation and how they can be delivered in the most efficient and effective way.
"We are now prioritising which of our high-rise blocks need them most, and we will be sharing our plans as soon as we possibly can.”
Recent tower block fires
On 25 September a fire broke out in a top floor flat at Twinnell House in Easton, which killed a man. It also left several people injured, and many others temporarily homeless.
Local residents and the tenants union ACORN held a public meeting on October 13 and invited the Mayor of Bristol Marvin Rees and housing chief Tom Renhard to ask them about
fire safety in tower blocks, but neither attended.
At that meeting the residents made a list of demands, which included sprinkler systems to be installed, as well as for more fire safety ‘waking watch’ fire wardens to monitor the tower blocks through the night.
On 20 October 20 a second fire broke out at Ecclestone House in Easton, which was started deliberately and spread through the cladding on the outside of the building.
What's going to change?
On 3 November a report revealed that the cladding had contributed to the fire at Eccleston House. Waking watch wardens were introduced at Gilton House in Brislington, Croydon House in Easton, and at Yeamans House and Broughton House in Redcliffe.
On 9 November the cabinet lead for housing, Cllr Tom Renhard, confirmed those additional measures had been implemented, and more waking watch wardens would be hired at tower blocks across the city, to bring the total number of blocks covered by overnight wardens to 27.
What has the reaction been?
A spokesperson for ACORN said: “Almost four years on and only one of the blocks has had the sprinklers installed.
"Had they kept to their promise the three blocks that have caught fire recently would have had sprinklers. The mayor and the council need to accept responsibility for this neglect.
ACORN will keep pushing until every tower block in Bristol has all the measures needed to make them safe from fire."
Responding to the criticism, a spokesperson for Bristol City Council said: “Earlier this year we completed a pilot sprinkler installation project at Butler House, St George. An earlier pilot had been planned at Castlegate House but the majority of residents objected to the sprinkler installation pilot, resulting in the system being ineffective if progressed with low uptake.
“The pilot at Butler House however worked well and we have learnt lessons regarding the process of implementation and how they can be delivered in the most efficient and effective way. We are now prioritising which of our high-rise blocks need them most, and we will be sharing our plans as soon as we possibly can."