The type of cladding used on a block of student flats destroyed in a blaze in Bolton on Friday “causes concern”, Greater Manchester mayor Andy Burnham has confirmed.
Speaking at a press conference in Bolton on Saturday, Burnham confirmed that The Cube student accommodation in Bradshawgate did not have the same cladding as Grenfell Tower – but did have a form of cladding that “raises issued that will have to be addressed”.
The incident has been widely compared to the Grenfell disaster, in which 72 people died in June 2017 after a small fire spread rapidly through the high-rise building, exacerbated by dangerous aluminium cladding which was filled with plastic.
It is believed that the cladding on the Bolton flats was what is known as HPL cladding. Just weeks ago, fire safety experts warned the government that the cladding should be “urgently” removed, after concerns were raised about “flawed” tests on the material.
Grenfell United, a group advocating behalf of the Grenfell community, said watching the Bolton fire “brings back memories” of the disaster, and asked when the prevalence of dangerous cladding would be treated as a “national emergency”.
Two people were injured on Friday after what is believed to have started as a small fire in a student flat quickly escalated into a huge blaze that was seen tearing through the upper floors of the building “within minutes”, according to firefighters.
Dramatic videos published to social media show pieces of debris falling rapidly from the building as it burnt, with one eyewitness stating they had seen flames “crawling up the cladding”.
One student reportedly had to be rescued from the building using an aerial platform after she became trapped.
Greater Manchester Fire and Rescue have not yet confirmed the cause of the fire, and have launched an investigation after the flames spread “extremely rapidly”.
Concerns have also been raised about the safety of the fire alarms, with students who lived in the block claiming that they had heard so many false alarms that residents were unsure if there was a real incident until they smelt smoke, Manchester Evening News reported.
Speaking to reporters, Burnham said he wanted to work with the government on a way forward to make buildings more safe.
He said: “We know that the prime minister is visiting later and we will be looking to work with him to understand what happened last night and see if we need to go further to remove cladding from these buildings and give families peace of mind.”
Speaking about the actions of the emergency services, he added: “I’m sure I speak for everybody when I say could not be more proud of our firefighters and emergency services.”
Earlier on Saturday, the general secretary of the Fire Brigades Union described the way in which the fire appeared to travel as “deeply troubling”, and called for a “complete overhaul” of UK safety standards.
“This is not how any building should react to a fire in the 21st century, let alone a building in which people live,” he said.
Burnham, who has faced anger during his time as mayor for cuts to the fire service in order to save millions of pounds, was subjected to further criticism by the FBU’s north west executive council member Les Skarratts, who called for an end to senseless cuts”.
Skarratts said: “Firefighters on the ground have worked tirelessly to contain the fire and rescue residents. There will clearly be some hard lessons to learn as the circumstances become clearer in the coming days.
“Greater Manchester has lost more than 600 firefighters since 2010 alone and, alarmingly, Andy Burnham is trying to cut another six fire engines, including one in Bolton.
“We need to stop the senseless cuts to our fire and rescue service before we see another awful incident like this.”
A spokesperson for the Mayor’s office responded by stating that Burnham had “significantly increased the number of firefighters since he took office.”
In September, Burnham made a U-turn on a series of proposed cuts, including plans to cut the number of crew aboard a fire engine from five to four, the Manchester Evening News reported.
Six fire stations in the Greater Manchester area will be closed, whilst three new ones will be opened, after bosses were told to cut spending by £12.8m over three years.
Bolton North and Bolton Central were two of the stations to be axed.
More than 40 fire engines attended the scene in Bolton on Friday night, with several crews remaining on the scene tackling “hotspots” within the building on Saturday morning.
Greater Manchester deputy mayor for policing, crime, criminal justice and fire Beverley Hughes said some of the firefighters involved in battling the blaze in Bolton on Friday had been through Grenfell-inspired training just one day before.
She said: “The learning from Grenfell has paid dividends. Some of the firefighters had training the day before, particularly around evacuation.”
Hughes also praised the response from the emergency services and lauded two student ambassadors, named only as Kate and Jade, who knocked on doors in The Cube to alert students to evacuate.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson visited the site of the fire on Saturday, meeting with some of the students who had been made homeless. After seeing the donations of supplies such as clothing and toiletries that had already started pouring in, he praised the response as “incredible” and “terrific”.
More than £3,700 has been raised already for affected students via a GoFundMe online appeal.
British Red Cross volunteers have been providing emotional support. Julie Ashworth, 54, one of four volunteers on scene overnight, said: “Most of our help was advice and support really. There was a lot of them in a state of shock.
”A few of them were cold as they’d come out in just their pyjamas. We gave them blankets to keep them warm and what toiletries we had in the van to keep them going overnight.
”A lot of people were popping in all the time with various things to keep students going.
“Someone came in with pizzas and someone else with bottles of water. It was great to see the community rallying round them.”
Although the flats house students at the University of Bolton, the accommodation is not owned or managed by the university itself.
The building is managed by private student housing provider Valeo USL – branded online as Urban Student Life – which manages properties across the UK and Ireland in cities such as Dublin, Liverpool, Leeds, and Nottingham.
The buildings which make up The Cube were completed in 2014 and 2015, after being converted from office space.
On Saturday evening, Valeo USL responded to concerns about the safety of the fire alarms, confirming they were “fully functioning on the night of the fire and the fire alarm activation and evacuation procedures for the building were followed during the incident.”
In relation to reports that there had been frequent false alarms in recent weeks the spokesperson added: “The fire alarms are maintained by a specialist accredited fire alarm company Total Fire Solutions. That company carried out onsite staff training on Tuesday of last week and carried out testing on Friday of last week following maintenance of the system.
“Both those events necessitated sounding of the alarms as part of the test procedures. Other alarm activations do take place either localised to individual flats or for the main alarm system as a result of detected actions that do not require a full fire service response and main system fire alarm logs are maintained.”
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