Expert advised against retrospective fitting of sprinklers in high-rise buildings

Workers remove cladding from Whitebeam Court, in Pendleton, Manchester. Photo / AP

The chairman of an expert panel assembled to help the UK Government in the wake of the Grenfell Tower disaster had previously advised against the retrospective fitting of sprinklers in high-rise buildings.

An independent panel will convene to suggest immediate safety action in the wake of the inferno which claimed the lives of at least 79 people this month.

It will be chaired by former London fire commissioner Sir Ken Knight, who compiled a report on the Lakanal House fire in Camberwell which killed three women and three children in 2009.

In his report to the Department for Communities and Local Government, he wrote: "It is not considered as practical or economically viable to make a requirement for the retrospective fitting of fire suppression systems to all current high- rise residential buildings.

"However it is a matter for individual housing owners and landlords to decide if automatic fire suppression is required as part of their fire safety strategy based on their fire risk assessment."

Sprinklers, as well as cladding, are expected to be among the details analysed by a public inquiry into the fire.

It comes as the Cabinet has been told 95 samples of cladding from tower blocks in 32 English local authority areas have failed fire safety tests.

Nine UK hospital trusts have also been identified as using cladding that is similar to that involved in the Grenfell Tower fire.

In Germany an 11-storey building in Wuppertal has been evacuated over concerns about exterior insulation similar to that used at Grenfell.

- PA, AAP