Grenfell survivors housed in high fire risk flats

A risk assessment report has revealed that survivors of the Grenfell Tower fire are living in a block of flats with a high risk of fire.

The Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea acquired 31 flats in July last year for survivors of the tragedy at Grenfell Tower. The new-build property was bought from a private contractor as part of the 300 homes for Grenfell survivors.

However, a recent fire risk assessment completed concluded that current provisions were not satisfactory and that the building was at high risk of fire, with the paper finding that combustible materials were currently not separated from ignition sources, the smoke extraction system was not working, and that there was no adequate procedures for disabled residents to be evacuated.

The assessment also revealed that there was no evidence that the cladding on the building had been inspected and further noted that there wasn’t compartmentation of a reasonable standard or reasonable limitation of linings that might promote fire spread.

Sarah Jones MP, Labour’s Shadow Minister for Housing, said: “This is yet another example of how neither the Conservative government nor Kensington and Chelsea Council have learned the lessons from the Grenfell tragedy. No-one should be living in unsafe buildings, but of all people, putting Grenfell survivors at risk of another fire is reprehensible.

“Two years after Grenfell, 60,000 people are still living in tower blocks with deadly cladding, 95 per cent of council blocks still don’t have sprinklers, and countless more could be at risk because the government has failed to do safety checks on most tower blocks. Labour has pledged a £1 billion Fire Safety Fund to finance vital safety work and retrofit sprinklers in high-rise social housing blocks. Ministers have ignored our calls for action, as they ignored years of warnings pre-Grenfell. The Tories cannot be trusted to keep people safe in their homes.”