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Seven buildings are at extreme risk, but have not been identified. (ABC News: Malcolm Sutton)
An audit has revealed 30 South Australian buildings require urgent remedial work to deal with potentially flammable aluminium cladding — but the State Government is refusing to identify which ones are at risk.
Key points:
- SA buildings have been under review since the 2017 Grenfell Tower fire in London
- The results of an audit into combustible cladding in SA buildings show 30 require urgent work
- One of the private buildings identified as high risk is currently under construction
The buildings have been identified in a statewide review, which was launched in mid-2017 in the wake of London's Grenfell Tower fire which killed 72 people.
Tenants could be forced to cover some of the costs of remediation, after the State Government ruled out following Victoria's lead, which invested hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars to reduce the fire risk.
The State Government audit interim report has determined seven privately-owned buildings are at "extreme risk" and require immediate action and remedial work.
A further 21 privately-owned buildings have been assessed as "high risk", meaning remedial action should be carried out in the next 12 months.
According to State Government briefing documents, the 28 privately-owned buildings are "primarily multistorey residential apartment buildings".
Two publicly-owned buildings have also been identified as "high risk".
Infrastructure Minister Stephan Knoll said one of those buildings was under construction and not currently open to the public.
He said works were underway to reduce the building's risk to an "acceptable level".
"The other publicly-owned building is a small ablution block and I'm advised that remediation works are being carried out over the coming weeks," Mr Knoll said.
"We will quite clearly be keeping very strong oversight over those private buildings and making sure those remediation works do progress. And we'll reserve our rights on future actions should that not progress in the way that we expect."
Building owners to notify occupants
The Minister declined to identify which buildings were at risk, saying that responsibility would fall to building owners.
"Security and safety have always been one of the primary reasons that we do not reveal the exact locations of buildings with significant cladding issues in line with other states," he said.
"We don't want to put a massive sign on the front of a building to say to an arsonist 'come here, and you can wreak havoc'.
"It is our expectation that building owners will notify occupants of their respective buildings and keep them informed throughout the remediation process as appropriate.
"None of these buildings has been assessed as needing to have the occupants evacuated. All of these buildings are buildings in the short-term that are able to be occupied."
Mr Knoll acknowledged that owners of apartments in affected buildings could be called upon to help pay for the cost of remediation.
In July, the Victorian Government announced a $600 million plan, half-funded by taxpayers, to rectify safety risks in about 500 buildings with aluminium composite cladding.
However, Mr Knoll said SA taxpayers would not be called upon to help, and said it was a "matter for the private building owners" as well as builders and insurers.
"We expect those existing processes to be used to fix it," he said.
The Minister said building owners had a "duty of care" to notify tenants in affected buildings of the potential danger, and said it would also be up to South Australian councils to ensure that the owners of private buildings took necessary work to reduce the risk.
"The [Department of Planning, Transport and Infrastructure] will be working very closely with councils and building owners to ensure remediation works are carried out and these buildings meet the acceptable standard," he said.
"The way that we deal with defects in buildings essentially places the responsibility with councils under the Development Act to be able to have that discussion with building owners.
"We firmly expect building owners to take their duty of care seriously and have those conversations with the occupants inside those buildings.
"Targeted recladding of some high-risk areas, in a number of situations, will be sufficient to reduce the life safety risk."
Ongoing work at Convention Centre and Adelaide Oval
Mr Knoll said the remedial actions would include removing aluminium composite panels from around exits, firefighting equipment and balconies, and in some circumstances removing the cladding from the first three metres above ground.
He said in some circumstances, owners would be required to install automatic fire suppression systems, sprinklers, fire extinguishers, smoke alarms, automatic fire doors or fire control systems.
Buildings identified in the audit will be automatically added to the Metropolitan Fire Service's dispatch system, so firefighters would be automatically alerted to the risks in the event of a fire.
The statewide audit began a month after London's Grenfell Tower fire, and involved assessing 17,000 publicly-owned buildings.
Four public buildings were prioritised for investigation last year, including the Adelaide Convention Centre, Royal Adelaide Hospital, Queen Elizabeth Hospital and Adelaide Oval.
In August, the ABC revealed the State Government had been considering taking legal action against the builders of the Adelaide Convention Centre.
The ABC also revealed that the company responsible for fire engineering work on the building had discussed the possibility of recladding the building, and the effect on its reputation with the Government.
Mr Knoll said while further tests were underway, the four major public buildings were safe for public use.
"There's obviously some work going on in relation to the Convention Centre and the testing of some cladding there and also there may be some minor work being done to Adelaide Oval," he said.
"But, having said that, the risk assessment tool says that all of these buildings are safe to use."
Editor's note October 10, 2019: This story initially stated there were more than 30 buildings that required remedial work. The figure has been corrected to 30.
Topics: government-and-politics, building-and-construction, community-and-society, workplace, states-and-territories, accidents, australia, adelaide-5000, sa
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