170,000 buy Cowell single in just 2 days
SIMON Cowell’s Grenfell Tower charity single has topped the singles chart two days after its release.
The version of Simon and Garfunkel’s Bridge Over Troubled Water, by 50 of Britain’s leading artists, is the second-fastest selling single of the year.
According to the Official Charts Company, 170,000 copies have been sold across digital and streaming, with just under 169,000 of those sales coming from downloads.
Only Ed Sheeran’s Shape of You, which sold 227,000 copies in its first week of release in January, has performed better.
Sung by Artists For Grenfell, the line-up includes Robbie Williams, Liam Payne and Rita Ora.
The single, organised by X Factor boss Cowell, also claimed the 10-year record for sales on an opening day with 120,000 units.
It knocked Despacito, by Luis Fonsi, Daddy Yankee and Justin Bieber, into second spot in the charts. CONCERNED council bosses last night ordered more than 800 homes evacuated amid fears they are clad in the foam blamed for spreading the Grenfell Tower fire.
The move came as five more tower blocks were uncovered yesterday as being potential deathtraps.
It brought the total confirmed by Government inspectors to have cladding that raises safety concerns to 16.
It was reported Camden council in north London are to evacuate the 800 households in the five high-rises on the Chalcots estate where the cladding failed the test.
Council leader Georgia Gould said the evacuation of the Taplow building yesterday was so “urgent fire safety works” could be done while the residents could be “fully assured of their safety”.
Gould said it was expected the work would take three or four weeks, adding that residents would be housed in temporary accommodation.
Thousands live in the 800 flats. There was a fire in the Taplow block in 2012.
The evacuation last night came after councillors were confronted at a public meeting.
A resident named Angela said: “You can’t reassure me because I’m on the 17th floor. You need to do more and you need to do it now. I’m petrified.”
Another resident stormed: “You never looked at the work that was done. So you left these people in danger.
“I want to see someone from the council swing for that.”
Work has begun on removing all the cladding. It will be completed in “weeks not months”, council bosses said.
Around 600 council high-rises in England are being checked in the wake of the Grenfell Tower disaster. It is thought Grenfell’s cladding – made of aluminium composite material – spread the flames at alarming speed.
The 16 blocks that had failed tests as of last night are a c r o s s nine council areas including in London, Manchester and Plymouth. In Islington, north London, contractors have moved in to remove the cladding on Braithwaite House, which failed the government tests.
Kathleen Hughes, who has lived in the block since 1983, called the scandal “disgusting”.
She said: “I don’t think anyone is very happy. I’ve also been in this block when there’s been a small fire and it’s not nice. Everyone has got to get their act together pronto.”
She added: “They put the cladding on in 1998.
“We didn’t know what it was. We thought it was an improvement to the building because the concrete was falling out.” Christine Byrne, 52, a school caretaker who lives with her son and daughter said all flats, except hers, had their own fire exits, adding: “It’s scary. It makes you feel tearful when you see what happened.” Cladding has also been stripped from a tower block in Wythenshawe, Manchester, after tests. It will also be removed from nine blocks in nearby Pendleton, Salford, which were recently refurbished, though the panels have not yet been officially tested by the Department for Communities and Local Government. Thousands of residents across the country continued to live in fear yesterday on the second day of emergency national testing.
Two 18-storey buildings in Portsmouth – Horatia House and Leamington House – joined the list of those having cladding urgently stripped after tests revealed they are a potential fire risk.
Cladding at a tower in Clements Court, Hounslow, south-west London, also failed the safety test and will be removed “as soon as possible”, the council said.
The Government have the capacity to test 100 samples a day.
Hospitals across the country are also having cladding urgently checked.
The regulator, NHS Improvement, have confirmed they have written to all trusts to ask them to carry out safety tests