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Wall collapse tragedy was a result of crumbling regulation
A DISTURBING fact has begun to emerge from the inquest into the death of two-year-old Saurav Ghai who was tragically killed when a wall collapsed in Gospel Oak (See pages 4 and 5).
We now know it was repaired by a private building firm which then – extraordinarily enough – checked its own work.It is to this that the seeds of the tragedy may be traced.
The arrow of blame must be pointed at the madcap rush towards the privatisation of the public sector, revved up under Margaret Thatcher in the 1980s and duly carriedout by local authorities, including Labour-led Camden Council.
A quick search of municipal history will show that prior to Thatcherism all new building work and most repairs – whether residential or in the public sector – were thoroughly checked by district surveyors, appointed by the London regional authority, first the London County Council, later the Greater London Council. All building companies respected and feared the expertise of these independent surveyors.
Sometime in the 1990s the climate changed. After the dissolution of the GLC, the district surveyors were at first subsumed into the planning department of Camden Council, and then later replaced, in the main, by private surveyors acting under the name of
“building control officers”.
No distinct evidence has been evinced so far at the coroner’s hearing as to whether the original design of the wall was sound.
The wall would have been built in the 1970s along with the estate, by
a private contractor, but under the vigilant eye of the then district surveyor. That does not mean, of course, that the design was faultless.
But nonetheless, if in 1997 a thorough inspection had been carried out by the old-fashioned district surveyor it is highly probable that faults, either in the repair work, or in the design, may well have been spotted.
But, putting that aside, another question may be asked: which council
committee endorsed the policy at the end of the 1990s that from then on only random checks of council repair work would be carried out?
This is not really simply a matter of parochial politics but of law.
As we understand it, the control of repairs and new builds, down the decades of the past century, flowed from various London Building Acts and could not be interpreted by local authorities.
Overseeing these laws were the old LCC and later the GLC.
Once disbanded, the doors were opened to a mish-mash of controls, but, even so, the law should have been observed.
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