International Construction Law Review
“HOW IS THAT EVEN POSSIBLE?” RAISING CONSTRUCTION REGULATION FROM GRENFELL TOWER
MATTHEW BELL
The University of Melbourne*
“A cultural and behavioural change … is now required across the whole sector to deliver an effective system that ensures complex buildings are built and maintained so they are safe for people to live in for many years after the original construction.”1 “This is most definitely not just a question of the specification of cladding systems, but of an industry that has not reflected and learned for itself, nor looked to other sectors.”2 Dame Judith Hackitt.
I. INTRODUCTION
On 4 September 1666, Samuel Pepys surveyed the aftermath of the Great Fire of London from the steeple of All Hallows Church. He later wrote in his diary that it was “the saddest sight of desolation that I ever saw”.3 Some 350 years later, on 14 June 2017, a shocked world watched the sun rise on the smouldering shell of the Grenfell Tower housing estate in west London. The official death toll amongst the 293 people in the Tower that night, including a baby delivered stillborn, was 71.4
* BA (Hons), LLB (Hons), MConstrLaw (Melb); Senior Lecturer and Co-Director of Studies for Construction Law, Melbourne Law School, The University of Melbourne; Professional Support Lawyer to the Major Projects and Construction Group, Clayton Utz (part-time); Chair, Academic Sub-committee, Society of Construction Law Australia. This article is a substantially revised version of the paper awarded the Society of Construction Law Hudson Prize for 2017 and presented to the Society in London on 8 May 2018 (published as SCL Paper no 208 (March 2018)). This article was peer reviewed by the Editors prior to it being accepted for publication.
1 Judith Hackitt, Building a Safer Future: Independent Review of Building Regulations and Fire Safety: Interim Report (HMSO, 2017: “Hackitt Interim Report”), 6.
2 Judith Hackitt, Building a Safer Future: Independent Review of Building Regulations and Fire Safety: Final Report (HMSO, 2018: “Hackitt Final Report”), 5.
3 Cited in Claire Tomalin, Samuel Pepys: The Unequalled Self (Penguin, London 2002), 231.
4 London Metropolitan Police, Number of Victims of the Grenfell Tower Fire Formally Identified (Press release, 16 November 2017). Another resident, who had suffered severe burns in the fire, died in hospital in February 2018: Thomas Burrows, “Woman Who Escaped from the 19th Floor of Grenfell Tower Dies After Spending Seven Months Fighting for Her Life in Hospital with Agonising Burns” Daily Mail (London, 1 March 2018) http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5446237/Woman-escaped-19th-floor-Grenfell-Tower-dies.html (last accessed 13 May 2018).
Pt 3] “How Is That Even Possible?”
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