The Local Government Association has called on the government to lower the height limit at which new and existing residential buildings were required to feature automatic fire-suppression systems, such as sprinklers, from 30m down to 18m.

At its annual conference in Brighton today the LGA, which represents 370 councils and all fire and rescue authorities in England, warned that tougher rules needed to be introduced to protect people living in high-rise buildings.

The LGA said that proposals in the Hackitt report following the Grenfell fire in 2017 – that owners of existing towers blocks in excess of 30m high would have to satisfy regulators such structures were safe – did not go far enough and called for this threshold to be reduced, “given the practicalities of fire-fighting”.