Should we be concerned about fire risks at MQ?

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With the prospect of £2.5m being spent on “cladding” remediation at MQ and a further £1.6m on balcony remediation one might be concerned that without this work we are living in a fire death trap.  Its therefore worth stepping back and examining the data on this and reminding ourselves of MQ’s fire record.

Data
The main source of data on fires is the Home Office’s  Fire statistics data tables.  The table below is an extract from this with percentages added as well as percentages of dwellings from the English Housing Survey, Home Ownership 2017-18.

Fatalities in dwelling fires attended by fire and rescue services in England, by dwelling type (Fire statistics table 0205b)

		Dwelling Type
Year	Total Fatalities	Purpose Built Low Rise (1-3) Flats/Maisonettes	Purpose Built Medium Rise (4-9) Flats	Purpose Built High Rise (10+) Flats
Totals 2009- 20	2529	336	107	137
percentage		13%	4%	5%
% by dwelling		14%	5%	1%
2017-18

This shows that while 5% of households live in Medium Rise flats of 4-9 stories such as at MQA-G, they account for 4% of fire related fatalities.  Statistically, there is less chance of dying from fire in a medium rise flat than in the average of other types of dwellings.

Note the 5% fatality figure for High Rise flats includes 71 deaths from the Grenfell Tower fire.  Without this the 5% figure drops to 3%. Still above the 1% of dwellings.

The English Housing survey Fire and Fire Safety 2016-17 report further notes that social renters are twice as likely to have a serious fire in their home than owner occupiers.  Moreover, fires were twice as likely to occur in older dwellings built before 1919 (2%) compared to those who lived in homes built after 1980 (1%).  Both of these factors mean that MQ is statistically more likely to be at the lower end of risk within the Medium Rise flat category.

Comparing fatalities from fire and road traffic accidents
It is also worth considering the risk of death from fires at home in the context of other risks we face.  In 2018, 1752 people were killed in road traffic accidents compared to 216 in fires at home.  On average, across the population, one is eight times more likely to die in a road traffic accident than in a fire at your home.

MQ’s fire performance
In addition to this we have experience of how MQA-G performs in a real fire.  Many years ago (c.2007?) there was a fire in a ground floor flat in Thistley Court.  The flat was burgled and torched to destroy any forensics.  Whilst the flat was gutted making it uninhabitable, the fire was contained within the dwelling concerned, proving the effectiveness of fire safety design in MQA-G.  This was also the case with a flat in Corbige Court at the end of March 2021. 

The fire risk from balconies
A leaseholder in Stretton Mansions has balcony decking with a large hole in it.  Apparently the people previously living there lit a disposable BBQ on the decking.  When disposing of it the next morning they found it had burned through the decking.  In spite of this the decking hadn’t caught fire. Furthermore, the revised RICS guidance indicates that our current balconies are safe and do not need remediation work. See the blog Balconies under attack because of EWS1 and the Fire Safety reports in the documents section of this site.

Conclusion
Not only should we not be overly concerned about fire risks at MQ, even without remediation work MQ is likely to be considerably safer than most dwellings in the UK.  What ever the reason is that the board plans to spend over £4m on remediation work at MQ, it is the author’s opinion that its unlikely that it has much to do with fire safety.