UK says 27 apartment blocks fail fire safety tests
Cladding on 27 tower blocks in 15 council areas in England has failed fire safety tests, the British government said.
This comes after Camden Council became the first authority to evacuate residents over fire safety concerns, asking people living in four high-rise buildings to leave late on Friday, BBC reported.
The council said it had no option but to move residents of 650 flats on the Chalcots estate while work takes place.
British Prime Minister Theresa May said “necessary” steps will be taken to find people accommodation.
By Saturday morning, 83 people had refused to leave their homes.
The council’s Labour leader, Georgia Gould, said the council had acted “as swiftly as we possibly can” to ensure people’s safety.
Gould said the fire service “told us they could not guarantee our residents’ safety in those blocks”.
May said: “We are making sure that the authority has the ability to do what is necessary to ensure people have somewhere to stay and that the work is done so that those tower blocks will become safe for them to return to in future.” Other high-rise buildings are also being tested. The estate’s cladding is similar to Grenfell Tower in west London, where a fire is feared to have killed 79. The Metropolitan Police say manslaughter, health and safety, and fire safety charges will be considered in relation to that blaze.
Chalcots was refurbished between 2006 and 2009 by the same firm, Rydon, that oversaw work at Grenfell Tower in 2015-16.
Camden Council says it will remove external thermal cladding from five tower blocks on the Chalcots estate.
It also said there were concerns about the insulation of gas pipes going into flats, and fire doors.
The council initially announced the evacuation of one tower block, Taplow, but later extended the move to all five tower blocks it had checked.