At more than 200 ft tall, and containing 110 flats, Ronan Point was built by Taylor Woodrow Anglian (now known as Taylor Wimpy), using a construction technique known as Large Panel System (LPS). This involved the off-site prefabrication of large concrete sections that were than lifted into position by crane and bolted together. These sort of system-built blocks had been constructed en masse in the post-war push for increased housing provision. Construction started in 1966 and was completed on 11^th March 1968. The previous year had seen the largest ever number of new flats and houses built – 470,000. The sheer scale of this production could be partly attributed to the Housing Act 1956, which introduced subsidies to local councils for every floor that was built over five storeys. The precast system used was the Danish Larsen & Nielsen system.

 

At approximately 5:45 am on 16 May 1968, resident Ivy Hodge went into her kitchen in flat 90, a corner flat on the 18th floor of the building She lit a match to light the gas stove for a cup of tea. The match sparked a gas explosion that blew out the load-bearing flank walls, which had been supporting the four flats above. The cause of the explosion was gas that was leaking from a joint in a newly-installed cooker. It is believed that the weaknesses were in the joints connecting the vertical walls to the floor slabs. The flank walls fell away, leaving the floors above unsupported and causing the progressive collapse of the south-east corner of the building. The building had just opened, and three of the four flats immediately above Hodge's were unoccupied. Four of the 260 residents were killed immediately and17 were injured, including a young mother who was stranded on a narrow ledge when the rest of her living room fell away. Ivy survived, having been blown across the room and clear of the collapsing walls by the explosion — as did her gas stove, which she took to her new address!

 

In the immediate aftermath of the collapse, the government commissioned an inquiry. The inquiry into the disaster found that although the design had complied with the building regulations, there were several major concerns about the safety and stability of the tower which was not adequate for even small explosions or for expected wind loadings; nor would it be adequate in a fire, which could have led to the structure bowing and subsequent collapse.

 

With regards to wind, it was not adequate for expected wind loading, since the wind speeds which the regulations required to be considered were much too low for a tall building - They assumed all windows were closed. However, if the glass in a window had broken, or somebody had gone out leaving a window open, a wall panel could suffer higher pressure on one side than the other, to an extent that the panels on the upper levels of the building might still be blown out

 

With regards to fire: a significant fire could lead to bowing of the structure and construction defects (failure to build as designed) had left unfilled gaps between floors and walls throughout, hidden only by skirting boards and ceiling paper, which left the building without fire separation between flats.

 

Gas was fitted into the blocks and the enquiry advised that the gas be taken out of the blocks and electric heating and cooking facilities were used as replacements.

 

Further construction defects had led to findings where joints were filled with newspaper and not concrete, missing bolts and fixings, whole weight of panels being supported by two steel rods, instead of being spread evenly along the panel, leading to extremely high stresses that the concrete was not designed to withstand. On the lower floors, cracks were found in the concrete where it had been point loaded, and it was alleged that the extra pressure on those points during a high wind (such as during the Great Storm of 1987, barely a year after the demolition) would soon have led to the building collapsing.

 

Ronan Point was partly rebuilt after the explosion, using strengthened joints designed to deal with those issues, and the Building Regulations were altered to ensure that similar designs would not be permitted in the future.

 

Despite the relatively low casualty rate, the spectacular nature of the failure (caused by both poor design and poor construction), was dramatic. As the blame being placed on poor design and construction, public confidence in tower blocks fell dramatically, and this spelt the end of the high-rise and prefabrication as solutions to the post-war housing crisis. Newham Council voted in 1984 to demolish Ronan Point. All nine blocks on the Freemason Estate, comprising 990 flats, were demolished in 1986 and the area was redeveloped with two-storey houses with gardens. Despite this, many buildings like Ronan Point are still standing.