The Sunday Telegraph

Council accused of wasting relief efforts

- By Rozina Sabur

A VAST number of donations to Grenfell Tower residents could go to waste as the council is failing to co-ordinate relief efforts, volunteers have said.

Food and other essential items have been flooding in to centres near the scene in west London, but angry volunteers have criticised the local council for the apparent lack of co-ordination.

Dozens of people attended a meeting of the Radical Housing Network, made up of different activist groups, in a community centre not far from the burnt-out tower block yesterday morning to discuss their “next steps” in supporting displaced residents.

A teacher who lives in the area called on Kensington and Chelsea council to take control of the relief efforts. Moyra Samuels told the meeting of around 70 people: “These are very uncoordina­ted [efforts] and my question is, ‘Where is the council?’ This is something that we cannot do without an enormous level of planning and co-ordination.”

Ms Samuels said that donations such as food would begin deteriorat­ing before they could be passed on to fire victims. “If the council is going to have to pay people to do that, that is what they are going to have to do,” she added.

It came as volunteers said they have seen an abundance of clothes and asked for donations of sanitary towels, pushchairs, electronic and children’s items. A petition calling for the council to resign, which had been pinned to an electricit­y box, appears to have been removed.

Volunteer Mark Sivarajah, who grew up in the area and returned to help, said he was shocked not to see any visible council presence.

Speaking outside a collection point beside Latymer Community Church, he said: “If you look around, there’s no one here with a council vest on.”

On Friday evening, demonstrat­ors stormed the council offices over its handling of the crisis amid concerns that earlier renovation work was linked to the spread of the blaze.

Speaking about the growing anger, Mr Sivarajah said: “This is about race, immigratio­n and austerity. People are very angry.”

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