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  • If they were still restoring the building then it is likely that the fire alarm would not be commissioned yet, same goes for a sprinkler system, leaving aside the difficulties of sensitively integrating one into a Grade 1 listed building.

  • I know that sounds reasonable, but I know from people who work there and working there myself in the aftermath that the first incidence of fire wasn't without a hefty portion of negligence on the part of the school as much as it was played down for the purpose of maximum insurance/media value and the narrative of the student's work catching fire became set in stone. Yes, that was the initial cause but there were some quite acute circumstances that exacerbated the damage and allowed the fire to spread so quickly from the basement to the roof. Blaming it on the student was a convenient way of deflecting attention from their own failures...

    Obviously its early days and the cause of it could have been exceptional, but I really struggle to believe that lessons were learned from the first time around and if there wasn't a functioning alarm/sprinklers there should have been other provisions. In WW2 there were fire wardens permanently in the roof just in case it was hit with incendiary bombs... it's not far fetched to say that something similar would be justified now.

    Unfortunately that kind of functional minutiae has from my experience never been as glamorous and exciting for the school directors as showing people around the site and grandstanding for the media, and I fear that the international attention and financial generosity the last tragedy was met with won't have cultivated the appropriate remorse...

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