Ronan Point was a 22-storey tower block in Canning Town in Newham, East London, that partially collapsed on 16 May 1968, only two months after it opened. A gas explosion blew out some load-bearing walls, causing the collapse of one entire corner of the building; four people died and 17 were injured. The nature of the failure led to a loss of public confidence in high-rise residential buildings, and major changes in British building regulations resulted.
The Building Act 1984 is a United Kingdom statute consolidating previous legislation concerning the construction process, and the design and specifications for buildings and their component parts, and related matters, in England and Wales. The Welsh Government may make its own building regulations for Wales under this Act.
Building regulations in the United Kingdom are statutory instruments or statutory regulations that seek to ensure that the policies set out in the relevant legislation are carried out. Building regulations approval is required for most building work in the UK.
The Red Road Flats were a mid-twentieth-century high-rise housing complex located between the districts of Balornock and Barmulloch in the northeast of the city of Glasgow, Scotland. The estate originally consisted of eight multi-storey blocks of steel frame construction. All were demolished by 2015. Two were "slabs", much wider in cross-section than they are deep. Six were "points", more of a traditional tower block shape. The slabs had 28 floors, the point blocks 31, and taken together, they were designed for a population of 4,700 people. The point blocks were among the tallest buildings in Glasgow at 89 metres (292 ft), second in overall height behind the former Bluevale and Whitevale Towers in Camlachie. The 30th floor of the point blocks were the highest inhabitable floor level of any building in Glasgow.
The Lakanal House fire occurred in a tower block on 3 July 2009 in Camberwell, London. Six people were killed, and at least 20 injured, when a high-rise fire, caused by a faulty television set, developed and spread through a number of flats in the twelve-storey building.
Muirhouse is a residential suburb in the south-east of Motherwell, North Lanarkshire, Scotland, coming under the Motherwell South East & Ravenscraig council ward and bordering the Flemington neighbourhood in the town, plus the Craigneuk and Netherton areas of Wishaw. It consists of thirteen tower blocks, amidst low rise flats and numerous houses.
The 1950s and 1960s saw the construction of numerous brutalist apartment blocks in Sheffield, England. The Sheffield City Council had been clearing inner-city residential slums since the early 1900s. Prior to the 1950s these slums were replaced with low-rise council housing, mostly constructed in new estates on the edge of the city. By the mid-1950s the establishment of a green belt had led to a shortage of available land on the edges of the city, whilst the government increased subsidies for the construction of high-rise apartment towers on former slum land, so the council began to construct high-rise inner city estates, adopting modernist designs and industrialised construction techniques, culminating in the construction of the award-winning Gleadless Valley and Park Hill estates.
The Centre for Window and Cladding Technology (CWCT) is a publisher of standards and guidance only, on corrosion, intrusion, fenestration, weather and fire resistance, acoustic and impact performance, of building envelopes, facades, cladding and glazing. Founded in 1989 and based in Bath, Somerset, the CWCT provides training and courses, hosts international events, conferences, seminars and is recognised by over 330 member companies within the construction industry.
On 14 June 2017, a high-rise fire broke out in the 24-storey Grenfell Tower block of flats in North Kensington, West London, at 00:54 BST and burned for 60 hours. Seventy people died at the scene and two people died later in hospital, with more than 70 injured and 223 escaping. It was the deadliest structural fire in the United Kingdom since the 1988 Piper Alpha oil-platform disaster and the worst UK residential fire since the Blitz of World War II.
Grenfell Tower is a derelict 24-storey residential tower block in North Kensington in London, England. The tower was completed in 1974 as part of the first phase of the Lancaster West Estate. Most of the tower was destroyed in a severe fire on 14 June 2017.
Tower blocks are high-rise buildings for residential use. These blocks began to be built in Great Britain after the Second World War. The first residential tower block, "The Lawn", was constructed in Harlow, Essex, in 1951; it is now a Grade II listed building. In many cases, tower blocks were seen as a "quick-fix" to cure problems caused by the existence of crumbling and unsanitary 19th-century dwellings or to replace buildings destroyed by German aerial bombing. It was argued that towers surrounded by public open space could provide for the same population density as the terraced housing and small private gardens they replaced, offering larger rooms and improved views, whilst being cheaper to build.
The Harrow Court fire occurred in a tower block on 2 February 2005 in Stevenage, Hertfordshire, England. Three people were killed, two of them firefighters, when a fire developed and spread from the 14th floor. An investigation of the fire found that there was an Abnormal Rapid Fire Development, caused by a candle melting the surface of a television, which then spread rapidly up the outside of the building to subsequent floors.
Chalcots Estate is a council housing estate on Adelaide Road and Fellows Road in Swiss Cottage in the London Borough of Camden. It was designed by Dennis Lennon and Partners. The Chalcots Estate was built on land owned by Eton College, which is reflected in the names of the individual buildings.
The Grenfell Tower Inquiry is a British public inquiry into the Grenfell Tower fire, which killed 72 people and destroyed Grenfell Tower on 14 June 2017. It was ordered by Prime Minister Theresa May on the day following the fire.
The Knowsley Heights fire occurred on 5 April 1991 at the 11-story Knowsley Heights tower block in Huyton, Merseyside. No-one was injured in the fire.
The United Kingdom cladding crisis, also known as the cladding scandal, is an ongoing social crisis that followed the Grenfell Tower fire of 14 June 2017 and the Bolton Cube fire of 15 November 2019. The fires revealed that large numbers of buildings had been clad in dangerously combustible materials, comprising a combination of flammable cladding and/or flammable insulation.
The Grenfell Tower Inquiry is a British public inquiry into the Grenfell Tower fire, which killed 72 people and destroyed Grenfell Tower, residential building in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, London, on 14 June 2017. It was ordered by Prime Minister Theresa May on the day following the fire.
Criticism of the response to the Grenfell Tower fire primarily consisted of condemnation of issues with the emergency response and fire safety regulation practices in the UK at the time. Broader political criticism was also directed at British society, including condemnation of the response by governmental bodies and UK politicians, social divisions, deregulation issues, and poor transparency overall.
The Freshwater Road fire was a fire that broke out in the Spectrum Building, a block of flats on Freshwater Road, Dagenham on 26 August 2024. Four people were injured and treated at the scene with a further two being taken to hospital. Comparisons were immediately drawn to the 2017 Grenfell Tower fire by several news outlets.
