Four of the five Chalcots Estate towers in Camden, north London, were deemed unsafe after they were found to use cladding similar to that on Grenfell, widely blamed for the rapid spread of the massive blaze last week that is presumed to have killed 79 people.
Some 27 high-rise buildings in 15 local authorities have already failed urgent fire tests conducted after Grenfell, the government announced yesterday, raising fears that thousands more may need to leave their homes.
Around 4,000 residents from all five Chalcots towers were initially evacuated, but one of the five — Blashford — was deemed safe and residents allowed to return.
Other residents faced chaos, with temporary accommodation offered in a local leisure centre and hotels, but some refused to move.
Camden Council leader Georgia Gould told BBC News that 83 residents had refused to leave, adding the situation “will become a matter for the fire service”. Outside one of the leisure centres, evacuees accused the authorities of sowing “panic”.
“At 8:30pm (1930GMT) yesterday they told us: ‘you have to leave’, I don’t understand why,” Murtaza Taha, 27, told AFP.
“They made people panic. Inside (the centre), they are all afraid, they are all crying.
“They say they are going to find us a place to stay, they say for two to four weeks, but you never believe the council.
If they say weeks, they mean months.”
Rosie Turner, 27, said she had initially refused to come because of concerns over her nine-week-old baby.
“There is nothing for him here, everyone is on top of each other,” she explained. “They should have done it in a proper and organised way, we could have arranged to stay with our family,” she added. “Today I’m gonna go back to my flat, I don’t care.”
Council leader Gould acknowledged it was “a scary time” but vowed “to make sure that they stay safe.”The cost we can deal with later,” she added.
The council has booked hotels across London and the works are expected to take up to four weeks.
In an update early yesterday, the council said it had secured “hundreds of hotel beds for Chalcots’ residents.”
Prime Minister Theresa May said yesterday that the government would do “what is necessary” to ensure people would have somewhere to stay.
Around 600 tower blocks are enclosed in potentially deadly cladding, with councils in Manchester, Portsmouth and London all announcing they were to immediately remove cladding from 13 structures.
On Friday, police said that manslaughter charges could be brought over the Grenfell inferno, after finding that the fire started with a faulty fridge and the building’s cladding had failed safety tests.
Fiona McCormack from the London police said that tiles and insulation on the outside of the building “don’t pass any safety tests.”
McCormack said police were investigating companies involved in the building and refurbishment of the tower, and possible “health and safety and fire safety offences”. The cladding was installed on the 24-storey council-owned Grenfell Tower, which was built in 1974, as part of a refurbishment completed last year.
It has prompted a wider review of social housing which has identified at least 600 towers in England with similar cladding.
McCormack said all “complete bodies” had been removed from the burnt-out tower and there was “a terrible reality that we may not find or identify everyone who died due to the intense heat”. She said officers had been through all levels of the tower but that the full forensic search could take until the end of the year.
Police fear the toll may be higher because some residents may have been living in the tower illegally.
May stressed on Thursday that all Grenfell victims, regardless of their immigration status, would be able to access whatever help they need.
“We will work with and support the emergency services and relevant authorities to safeguard the public,” she said.
Six men and three women killed in the Grenfell inferno have been formally identified.
They are Mohamed Alhajali, 23; Khadija Saye, 24; Abufars Ibrahim, 39; Khadija Khalloufi, 52; and Anthony Disson, 65, while the identities of three men and one woman have not been made public at the request of their families. Nine patients remain in hospital, of which three are in a critical condition.
Meanwhile the government ordered immediate checks on the Hotpoint FF175BP fridge freezer model blamed for the blaze.
l Council leader Georgia Gould was confronted by a furious resident who spend the night sitting in a chair after being evacuated from her home over safety fears linked to the Grenfell Tower disaster.
Shirley Phillips, 72, told the council’s Labour leader she had been forced to spend the night sitting outside after she was told she could not be rehoused because she had a dog.
She was filmed challenging Gould over her handling of the decision to evacuate four tower blocks on the Chalcots estate on Friday night.
Up to 4,000 people – including families with newborn babies and a Second World War veteran – were told to leave their homes after fire officers said they could not guarantee the safety of the buildings.
The elderly woman said: “I am having a pop at you in a funny kind of way because I am so absolutely stressed.
Why were hotels not looked at before we were all evacuated? “I’ve sat in a chair over here since 9 o’clock last night, I’m 72 years old. I suffer with emphysema. Now, I’m being told they can’t rehouse me because I’ve got a dog. “What do they want me to do with my dog? Put my dog to sleep?”
Gould replied: “We definitely, definitely can get you housing for your dog”, before the woman quipped back: “But when?”
The council leader said: “Well, we’ve got hotel rooms that we’ve identified at the moment. So what we’ll do is, we’ll go down, we’ll talk to the team. I know that there are over 100 hotels rooms that are waiting for people. So, let’s go down, have a discussion and we’ll find somewhere for you.”
Growing more frustrated, the resident said: “Yeah, but what year are you coming back to me? I can’t sit here all day,” before Gould responded: “We’re coming back to you right now.” The woman’s daughter joined in: “I’m her daughter.
She’s 72 years old and you’ve allowed her to sit in a chair with her dog and she’s stressing more for her dog than anything and you’ve allowed this to happen.”
She added: “For this long now, you’ve allowed them to live in a property that’s been dangerous.”
Gould agreed that it had been “a horrible, horrible night” and said she would help find the woman a hotel. More than 80 people have refused to leave their flats with some branding the decision to evacuate as “excessive” and a “knee-jerk reaction” by the council.
Four high rises on the Chalcots estate are thought to be covered with a similar type of cladding as that used at Grenfell Tower, five miles to the south west, where at least 79 people died in the June 14 tragedy.
A nationwide safety operation was launched after the disaster amid fears dozens of residential tower blocks could be swathed in the same material.
Work had been due to begin on stripping cladding from buildings on the Chalcots estate, but Camden Council ordered the evacuation of residents on Friday evening following further checks and concerns over “gas pipe insulation”. Those affected may not be able to return home for three or four weeks, the council said.
In a statement released on Friday night, Gould said: “Following last week’s tragic fire at Grenfell Tower, Camden Council, working with the London Fire Brigade, immediately reviewed fire safety at all our high-rise blocks.
“On Friday evening the London Fire Brigade advised that there were a number of fire safety issues, that we and the LFB were previously unaware of, in the Chalcots buildings and recommended that residents should not remain in the buildings until these issues are resolved.
“Acting on this advice we evacuated our residents. The Grenfell fire changes everything and we will do everything we can to keep residents safe. “We are still working our way through a phased operation, with residents from hundreds of homes supported as they move to their temporary accommodation.”
She added: “An operation of this scale, at such pace, is not without issues and problems along the way, but we had to do this, we have to act on fire service advice.
“Questions about how this could happen to these buildings will be asked, answered and actioned.”
