Barry Gardiner, MP for Brent North has invited residents of tower blocks in Brent to a meeting on Monday 19th June 7.30pm at St James Church Alperton, 34 Stanley Avenue, HA0
In the letter he tells the residents that the primary purpose of the meeting will be to listen to existing concerns about fire safety matters and how suggestions and complaints are handled.
The Borough Fire Commander and Brent Council Chief Executive have been invited or to send substitutes along with the Chief executives of local Housing Associations.
Gardiner states:
Such tragedies (Grenfell Tower) are less likely to happen when there is transparency and good communications between residents and manager of the property. It is my hope that the meeting can help ensure that this is the case.Gardiner's initiative is welcome, particularly as Brent Council response in the Guardian/Observer today LINK seems to cast doubt on the earlier comment it made to the Kilburn Times LINK.
The Guardian:
Councils in Coventry, Sandwell, and the London boroughs of Newham and Brent were unable to say if they had carried out any inspections or even how many tower blocks they had.The Kilburn Times:
In a report shown to the Brent&Kilburn Times, housing chiefs have set up a six-point action plan which includes checks that claddings applied to the outside of buildings are fire rated.The inclusion of Housing Associations in Monday's meeting is important because several of our local ones are now in the business of 'building to rent' or acting as managers for sites built by others. LINK
They are also liaising with the London Fire Brigade (LFB) to seek clarity and guidance around the “self evacuation” vs “stay put” briefing as many block residents are told to stay in their properties in the event of a fire.
There's another reason the HAs are vital. Many of them use private rented housing as so called temporary accommodation. A fair bit of this is ex council housing sold off under right to buy.
ReplyDeleteTalk is cheap, Actions speak louder than words. If we do not want to see what happened at Grenfell happen to any of Brent Residents in any HA or Council owned high rise properties, irrespective of when they were built, then whole heartedly agree with Pete Firmin's response to Cllr Butts statement when he said we need to have rigourous inspections by all who are responsible for the safety of residents and Publish the Reports on every last one of them. Only then will residents been assured that the Council and Public bodies have their best interests at heart. That everything has been done, investigations have been carried out, risks assessed, all recommendations have been adhered to, costs and money have been set aside to carry out the works, and that repairs will be carried out in a timely manner forthwith. Fire evacuation procedures are implemented and everyone, yes everyone, from the very young to the oldest resident understand exactly what they should do in the event of a fire. Only then can we be certain we are prepared.
ReplyDeleteNot just high rises. I've just discovered an almighty balls up BHP has made in a local three srorey block.
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