Governments have a duty to protect their citizens. While they won’t go as far as telling us what we can and cannot put in our homes, we do expect them to ensure that the buildings we live in are safe from fire.
The final report of the Grenfell Tower inquiry confirms that this was not the case in 2017 when 72 people lost their lives to a fire that engulfed their home in west London.
There is a general principle that residents of high-rise buildings should be as safe as those living in typical two-storey houses. This is achieved using what is known as “compartmentation” – a strategy of using fire-resistant construction to ensure that a fire in one flat cannot spread to neighbouring flats.
