The Scottish media is full of accusations that the SNP Government is failing to spend the ‘almost £100m from the UK government‘ on fireproof cladding to avert a Grenfell ‘towering inferno‘ here.

From BBC Scotland this morning:

Residents have been evacuated after a fire broke out at flats in Edinburgh in the early hours of the morning.

Around 45 firefighters have been tackling the blaze in Breadalbane Street, Leith, with Police Scotland also in attendance.

The Scottish Fire and Rescue Service (SFRS) said it sent nine fire engines and a height appliance to the scene after the alarm was raised at 04:10.

It said the building had been evacuated and there were no reports of any injuries.

Conservative MSP for Central Scotland Graham Simpson, who has a property in the block, was among the residents evacuated.

He said: “It started on the fifth floor and it’s spread up to the sixth floor and it seems it has gone into the stair well.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/czvz0xg81z8o

On the spread to the sixth floor, you can see some spread via balcony materials but critically no surge behind the wall-cladding.

Regular readers here know why, but first, there have been two other fires in 2021 and in 2022, with similar non spread to other floors.

These Scottish blocks also had flammable cladding yet, in no case, did the fire spread up the floors to create a towering inferno effect and kill:

2021, one floor, no deaths.

In Glasgow again in 2022, one man taken to hospital,

Why?

This:

Reader Gordon Darge wrote for us in January 2020:

As a chartered architect in Scotland for 40 years I can confirm that the Building Regulations Technical Standards Scotland have for two decades required cavity fire barriers

2.4 Cavities
Mandatory Standard
Standard 2.4
Every building must be designed and constructed in such a way that in the event of an outbreak of fire within the building, the spread of fire and smoke within cavities in its structure and fabric is inhibited.

This includes for example, around the head, jambs and sill of an external door or window opening, at all floor levels and building corners etc. to prevent the spread of fire in building cavities. This would have prevented the spread of the fire at Grenfell Tower.

This is difficult and expensive to achieve and I can only guess that in England they did not follow the Scottish model because Westminster and the Tories were led by the vested interests of big business, property developers and large construction firms.

For anyone wanting more info see:

https://www.gov.scot/publications/building-standards-technical-handbook-2019-domestic/2-fire/2-4-cavities

Finally, from statistics around the time of Grenfell

In Scotland 2015/16, 9 827 safety audits were carried out. England has 10 times the population and so, all things being equal, might have been expected to have seen 98 270 fire safety audits. However, in 2017/18, England saw only 49 423 fire safety audits, just over half the number. Fire safety audits in Scotland are thus almost twice as common, per head of population, in Scotland as in England.

Why? Cost-cutting Tory local authorities? Cost-cutting Tory central government?

Higher Scottish standards and fire safety audits twice as often as in England make a new Grenfell here very unlikely

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