Reflections one year after the Richmond House Fire
It has been one year since our block of flats in Worcester Park were burnt down in a fire. I thought of writing to make some notes that might be useful to people who buy properties and to those professionals whose signature can decide people’s lives.
The structure of the four-storey building was mostly made of timber. However, people wanted answers as to why the fire spread from one end of the building to the other end within just about 20 minutes. Residents attended more than 20 meetings with the Metropolitan Thames Valley Housing Association (MTVHA) that sold us the property and St James Group Ltd of Berkeley Group Holdings that constructed the building. Still there is no clear responsibility taking, though late MD of Berkeley Group Holdings, Mr. Tony Pidgley apologised to the group of residents in a meeting held in November 2019. In his words, “I worked very hard to build this company to what it is today. But we let you down. We let you down very badly. I came here today to apologise”. Then he promised substantial financial compensation, which the company’s legal representatives have declined so far.
Despite ongoing legal debates with St James Ltd, I must mention the swift action on the part of Zurich Insurance Company that helped timely relocation of residents in rented accommodations. Any delay in this would have had catastrophic consequences in the education of children in many families. Moreover, a report compiled by Gerard McLean, Associate Director at Chartered Architects, Probyn Miers, drawing on data collected by Hawkins, Zurich’s surveyors, identified a number of flaws in the construction of the building including a lack of cavity blocks. The Probyn Miers report attributes the rapid spread of the fire to the construction flaws identified in their report. An independent survey conducted by the LondonFire Brigade also attributed sub-standard timber material used in the building to the structure catching fire so rapidly. Unfortunately, the pre-incident firerisk assessment reports did not raise grave dangers that the post-incident reports found. What this means is that UK fire risk standards, construction guidelines, and routine checking protocols have a long way to go to provide meaningful safety guarantees to thousands of property buyers.
The police investigations could not find direct evidence of criminal activity leading to the fire. The Sutton police made this public appeal on 22nd June 2020. Therefore, it is very likely that the fire started from within the building and spread rapidly.
Now let me give a brief account of the human side of the story quoting examples from my family. My daughter lost all her books, notes, computer, and souvenirs of childhood memories. She started to get frequent headaches at school and obtained basic counselling from the school. Her predicted grades went down though she showed rapid recovery in early 2020 just before the schools closed due to the COVID-19 pandemic. However, her school, Radnor House, Twickenham, rejected an appeal to give more weightage to higher performance shown closer to the lockdown. As a result, my daughter lost her first choice of the University. My son who is in year 10 now, also went through a hard time. His school, Ewell Castle Senior School, and the community of parents have been very helpful to offer support. It meant so much to us and our son though the shocking memories of the fire still keep haunting him.
Professionals out there, please make a note that our work
with numbers should not only be hinged on profit or loss but also in the human lives
involved. History tells us many stories of professional misjudgement or
dishonesty that destroyed many lives or damaged the future of people. As for Engineering, we should confess that from Titanic, Challenger, to Autonomous Military Drones, engineers sometimes have bent under pressure to give false guarantees that took lives. The Richmond House fire and the damage it did to lives and the future of children involved should not go in vain. Future corporate leaders and professionals should reflect on the above reports. I hope this note will contribute in some way to avoid sad human catastrophies.
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Tom Woodburn