Structural assessments on Ledbury’s sibling blocks reveal gaps known about 30 years ago
Structural assessments undertaken at the Barley Mow estate in Tower Hamlets in 1988, reveal that the issues of gaps causing fire compartmentation breaches were discovered in these types of blocks 30 years ago.
Barley Mow Tower Blocks ‘Risby’ (now demolished) and ‘Malting’ underwent structural appraisals in preparation for the Limehouse Link tunnel some three decades ago. These blocks are similar to the Ledbury Estate Blocks, in that they were also part of the same ‘Morris Walk Series’ contract undertaken by the then LCC (later the GLC). These sibling blocks are also Large Panel System buildings, built by Taylor Woodrow Anglian using the Larsen-Nielsen method of construction. The structural survey reports that the same drawings were used in the construction of all the Morris Walk series blocks.
Also detailed in these documents is an acknowledgement that these types of block are less structurally robust, and in fact weaker than the Ronan Point tower block in Newham that partially collapsed in 1968
What’s unclear at this stage, is if this information was shared at the time, either by Tower Hamlets Council, or the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government to other local authorities owning these types of Morris Walk Series Blocks. Which would have perhaps highlighted the issues at the Ledbury Estate much sooner.
View the full Freedom Of Information documents:
