Residents at high rise flats managed by the organisation that ran Grenfell Tower have spoken of their concerns over their safety after Wednesday’s catastrophic fire.
Families who live in nearby Adair Tower in north Kensington, also operated by Kensington and Chelsea Tenants Management Organisation (KCTMO), have instructions to stay in their homes in the event of a fire. They believe the “stay put” policy places lives at risk.
Meanwhile, Camden council has been asked to urgently review cladding on five high-rises in the borough after tenants discovered that the contractor used in the Grenfell Tower block refurbishment was also responsible for renovation of their buildings.
At Adair Tower in Kensington and Chelsea, Fabio Freemantle, 33, lives on the 13th and highest floor. He opened his front door last October to find the stairwell full of thick smoke. A fire had started in a flat on the third floor.
He decided to ignore the advice to remain inside his apartment. “I was woken that day by the smell of burning,” he said. “There were no alarms and there’s no sprinkler system in the building or panic buttons. I got my elderly neighbour out of his flat and we walked all the way down the 189 steps. The smoke was so thick, we lost each other on the way down.
“I still suffer from PTSD. I was struggling down through the smoke and was taken to hospital for smoke inhalation afterwards. Your life is too precious to stay put. Since the [KCTMO] took over from the council, they have made it worse.”
Another couple, who bought a flat on the ninth floor of Adair Tower, said they saw little in return for the £4,000 service fee they pay to the landlord each year.
The husband and wife, who did not wish to be named, said they had been in their flat when fire broke out last October. “It was impossible to go out because of the smoke,” they said. “They told us to put wet clothes on the floor.
“[The KCTMO] doesn’t spend enough on safety. The windows don’t work. They put in new doors after the fire last October, but you can see daylight around the edge.” It did not look fireproof, they said. “Kensington and Chelsea is a rich area. They should have spent some of that money.”
Jose del Faria, 53, lives on the 11th floor of Adair Tower. He showed new notices stuck up in the hallways after last October’s fire stating: “There is a stay put policy for residents unless the fire is in it affecting your flat.”
His son, Michael, pointed out that they had been attached with weak glue – “like the type your credit card is attached to the bank’s letter [with]” – and some were already falling off.
“The lifts are constantly breaking down,” said Jose. “They only put on fire doors after the fire in Adair Tower last October. On that occasion I went out on to my balcony, but there was thick smoke there. There’s no sprinklers, no fire alarms and the security cameras don’t work.
“I stopped paying my rent in protest because my windows were falling off. I was chasing them for three and a half years. [The KCTMO] responded – they sent up surveyors, but nothing was ever done. To replace the windows, they would have had to put up scaffolding, and they didn’t want to spend the money.”
In nearby Hazelwood Tower, also run by KCTMO, Jean Dumas, an architect, works in a ground floor office of Trellik Design Studio. As well as the recent fire in Adair Tower, he said, there had been another one two months ago in nearby Trellick Tower, which is run by the same landlord. “Trellick Tower is a listed building and at least they can’t put any cladding on it. Concrete is a better fire retardant material.”
Green party councillor Siân Berry has demanded a “block by block breakdown” of the materials and structural plans for cladding used on every single block in Camden, highlighting heightened concern for safety in council high rises across the country.
Concerned residents in the Chalcot Estate in Swiss Cottage asked Camden council on Thursday for a copy of the specifications for the “rainfall cladding” installed by housing contractor Rydon 11 years ago. They fear their lives could also be at risk if the cladding is found to be an issue in the Grenfell inferno, which has killed at least 17 people.
They have also demanded copies of the service history for the building’s dry risers containing the hose connectors for the fire fighters, following unconfirmed reports from residents in Grenfell that some of the dry riser cabinets were jammed.
Bob O’Toole, head of the residents’ association in the Chalcot Estate, said he had received about 40 calls from panicked residents since the fire in Grenfell. One of them, Dan Browne, who lives on the 22 floor of Burnham House, said: “There is going to be holy war here. Of course we are worried. How are we going to get down if there is a fire?” He added that he was worried because the window-sills were plastic and in a fire could produce toxic fumes.
Rydon, the company involved in the upgrading of Grenfell, reclad four 22-storey blocks and one 18-storey block in the Swiss Cottage estate as part of a £18m revamp 11 years ago.
O’Toole, who also lives in Burnham House, said he was reassuring tenants that the building is safe because there was a fire in a 10th-storey flat in a neighbouring block two years ago which was contained. “The windows blew, flames were jumping out the window and there was some damage to the concrete, but the cladding and the insulation held,” he said.
However, he said he could not be wholly confident of safety until he the council reassured them that the situationw was different to that in Grenfell. He has called an emergency meeting next week for residents who have other concerns about fire that need to be addressed.
“There are smoke alarms, but no fire alarms in the building,” said one tenant, who did not want to be named. “How is someone on the top floor to know there is a fire on the bottom if there is no fire alarm?”
O’Toole also said the “stay put” policy directing residents to stay in their flats if there is a fire in another part of the building conflicted with the advice on posters on the walls on each floor directing residents to go to the nearest exit. “I have been asking for two years for those to be changed, and nothing has happened,” he said.
There are also no sprinklers in the building, something residents also complained about in Grenfell.
Shirley Phillips, 72, who lives on the second floor in a neighbouring block, said: “I am worried, but is worrying going to help?” She had read on Facebook that one of the tenants “wants everyone to rally around and call for the cladding to be removed”.
John Kieran, a resident of Bray House, said his concern was not the cause of the fire in Grenfell or Rydon’s standards. “They must have complied with the law,” he said. “You have to go up another level on the council to find out what happened. The fire regulations are clearly out of date and it was a political decision not to update them.”
Rydon did not comment on the Camden flats. Its chief executive, Robert Bond, said he was “shocked and devastated” by the Grenfell disaster but said he would could not comment further beyond a statement issued on Thursday because of the proposed public inquiry.
Camden council said it was conducting “additional fire safety checks” to reassure residents in its tower blocks. It did not comment on the Chalcot Estate.
Kensington and Chelsea Tenant Management Organisation has not responded to the Guardian about the complaints raised by tenants at Adair Tower.