This is a follow up to the last newsletter item concerning fire safety reports that will satisfy lenders for property sales in Galleon Place, Ledwell Court and Regency Place. Following the letter to Berkeley Homes and RMG by the Phase H Fire Risk Group, Berkeley Homes have now responded:
Thank you for your communication below in which I note your concerns regarding the assessment of the buildings.
Looking at the wider picture across the industry, there has been much change in directive, requirements and understanding within the building environment since the tragic events at Grenfell.
During these changes, the industry has developed a number of systems and processes to establish building safety. The current position, developed across the industry in consultation with Government, the RICS and industry stakeholders is the PAS:9980 2022 methodology of building assessment for external walls.
As part of this process, we have engaged a firm of Professional Fire Engineers (Tri Fire) to review the buildings holistically and provide to us a PAS: 9980 2022 Report and the resulting EWS1 certificate that is used by mortgage lenders to provide reliance that the building in question can be considered safe with particular regard to the external walls and any building attachments.
As part of this prescriptive review, Tri Fire have reviewed all elevations to the buildings and identified the areas they wish to open up to confirm the construction. This will be completed by their nominated opening up contractor. Based on the findings of the opening up, they are able to make some assumptions regarding the wider construction based on the as built information provided. This can obviously be a positive or negative depending on the findings.
This process is the accepted methodology for producing a holistic appraisal of the external wall systems. Additional information such as construction drawings, the current FRA and the site inspection details are also used to produce a final risk assessment of the building which is approved by the expertise of a Chartered Fire Engineer.
I do hope the above goes some way to set out the process and provides some reassurance that we are committed to providing an appropriate review and report of the buildings at Royal Clarence Marina with regards the external construction.
The investigation has now been carried out by Tri Fire and we await their report from Berkeley Homes. We don’t yet have timings for this but will keep leaseholders posted in the New Year.
Steve Parry
RCMRA Block Rep Ledwell Court
on behalf of the RCY Phase H Leaseholders Fire Risk Group
