The decision to grant planning to Ballymore’s Cuba Street tower, E14, has been branded “utter madness” by campaigners.
The 51-storey tower will be one of the UK’s tallest residential buildings, but will only have one staircase. This is only permissible under building regulations if the strategy is to tell residents to stay in their flats in the event of a fire.
Fire safety experts have warned that the risk of failure of the sprinkler systems is high, and as a result residents would attempt to evacuate down the stairs while firefighters came up the other way.
The tower is nearly twice the height of Grenfell Tower.
Arnold Tarling, a chartered surveyor and fire safety expert, said: “It is utter madness that this is still allowed.”
