We can’t wait for another tragedy: Warning that FOUR ministers ignored

MINISTERS ignored at least a dozen warnings about the need to take urgent action to improve fire safety in tower blocks, it emerged last night.

Letters leaked to the BBC’s Panorama programme show that four ministers were told about the need for tougher rules.

The letters spelled out how those living in blocks such as Grenfell Tower were ‘at risk’ – and changes were needed to ‘save lives’.

One of them, written in 2014, said the government ‘could not afford to wait’ for another tragedy before it acted.

The warnings were sent by the all-party parliamentary group on fire safety, a group of MPs that campaigns for better protection against blazes.

Shockingly, one minister replied to the group to say he had ‘neither seen nor heard anything’ that would suggest the group’s demands – such as the introduction of sprinklers – were urgent.

Stephen Williams, a former Liberal Democrat MP who was local government minister at the time, said bringing in the changes would ‘disrupt’ his department.

The group replied to say they ‘were at a loss to understand, how you had concluded that credible and independent evidence which had life safety implications, was NOT considered to be urgent’. Nothing was done to address fire safety in tower blocks and just two months ago, the group wrote a letter to warn: ‘It is now time to listen’.

The leaked letters were revealed as residents of blocks near Grenfell Tower said yesterday that drills had not been carried out at their homes for at least 14 years.

Councils were yesterday ordered to send samples of cladding on the outside of tower blocks so they can undergo rigorous testing. Local authorities were told to urgently check materials are safe following the Grenfell Tower fire. Councils with properties more than 59ft high with ‘aluminium composite material’ cladding were ordered to send samples to the government.

Last week it was reported that a more flammable type of material was used for the outer layer of the cladding at Grenfell Tower and that a flame retardant material should have been used instead.

Ministers stand accused of sitting on a warning from 2013 that fire safety in high rise blocks needed to be improved.

In that year a coroner demanded the retro-fitting of sprinkler systems in highrise blocks after a fire at Lakanal House in south-east London, which killed six.

The coroner also said ministers should review building regulations. But four years on, nothing has been published – even though former housing minister Gavin Barwell said in October that revised guidelines would be published soon.