It's only a few months old. Winter 2016.
It is the most comprehensive thing I've seen and I'm surprised the firm hasn't been more prominent as real experts in the last few days.
If I get the gist right, the panels used probably met UK buildings regs (so a question mark over Hammond's comments this morning).
"Class 0 limits the rates of surface spread of flame and of fire propagation, but can be achieved by materials which are combustible in a fully developed fire."
But there should be a non-combustible stop at each floor (to stop the funnel / chimney effect in cavities) so there may be issues there on how it was done.
The Parliamentary report from 2000 is horrible to read - but does both mean that hindsight is wonderful and that the risks were known.
"The committee concluded:
18. The evidence we have received during this inquiry does not suggest that the majority of the external cladding systems currently in use in the UK poses a serious threat to life or property in the event of fire. …
19. Notwithstanding what we have said in paragraph 18 above, we do not believe that it should take a serious fire in which many people are killed before all reasonable steps are taken towards minimising the risks."
As such a fire could be started maliciously from the outside of buildings, locking up bins and clearing exterior rubbish has to be immediate priority.
And the overall conclusion seems to be that many such buildings will need physical alterations that would need scaffolding so costly that they mIght as well install new cladding. And the bottom line is that unaltered buildings may be uninsurable.
