25 Jun ‘Newly Refurbished’ London Flats Ablaze, 72 Firefighters Respond to the Scene

Following the horrific fire which razed Grenfell Tower – a social housing block in West London – there has been increased concern over a similar event occurring in other high rise buildings. More than 20 storeys high, the official death toll from the Grenfell blaze has been put at 79, after a faulty fridge malfunctioned and flammable cladding installed by the local council quickly spread the fire across the building. There is debate regarding the accuracy of this death toll, due to the size of the tower block which had over 500 residents. Shadow Hone Secretary Diane Abbott has said she expects “that the numbers of people that have died will be in triple figures, just because it’s a 23-storey (sic) block”, insisting that the true death toll is more likely to be in the “hundreds”.

Those who made it out of the building are also facing dire conditions, as they struggle to cope with the aftermath of losing their belongings and homes. Many members of the local community have expressed outrage over how survivors have been treated and the perceived inaction from government. Nadia Isla, a West London resident involved in supporting the Grenfell victims has been a vocal critic of the response to this fire.

The latest news about some victims being temporarily housed in a nearby Holiday Inn hotel is likely to fuel this outrage even further. The hotel has evicted displaced Grenfell residents, following the local council failing to extend their booking and the hotel’s inability to alter other bookings. The hotel informed the council that the survivors would need to be rehoused by 4pm on 23 June 2017 – a distressing message which the council passed on to the former Grenfell residents in a letter which was later shared on social media.

“Despite efforts to extend your stay at the Holiday Inn Kensington Forum, regrettably the hotel has stated that they do not have availability. The Holiday Inn Gloucester Road was unable to continue accommodating 30 households due to previous bookings and we are deeply sorry for the manner in which the families had been informed of the need to move them.”

Amidst the confusion over the true scale of lives lost in the inferno, as well as the outrage over the perceived mismanagement of the Grenfell survivors, even more concerns are rising over how likely it is that such a catastrophic event will happen again. Following Prime Minister Theresa May’s orders that similar tower blocks should be tested for Aluminium Composite Material (ACM), at least 27 high rise buildings dedicated to public housing have been found to have been fitted with this combustible material.  600 blocks have been fitted with cladding which still needs to be tested for this flammable substance, and one council – Camden – has already evacuated 4,000 people from five tower blocks in response to test results. With the panic and confusion following the Grenfell tower and the palpable fear of yet another inferno, the news of another fire in London unsettled many.

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