Kentish Gazette Canterbury & District
Couple flee flat after bins blaze
Pam White and her husband were woken after the fire by Emma Grafton-williams egraftonwilliams@thekmgroup.co.uk A carer fears it is a matter of time before someone dies after arson attacks threatened to send two apartment blocks up in flames.
Pam White, 58, and her disabled husband were among those evacuated from flats in Bingley Court, Canterbury, after they were woken by frantic neighbours.
Bin sheds on the ground floor of each block had been torched in what investigators are describ- ing as a “deliberate” act. One neighbour, who asked not to be named, spotted the fires as he went to catch a train at 4.50am on Friday. He banged on doors to wake residents, who watched in their nightwear as fire crews tackled the flames.
The fires were contained to the bin stores, but apartments above suffered smoke damage to balconies and French doors.
The evacuated flats sit in sight of the Tannery estate, where 15 homes were destroyed and 29 badly damaged in a rapidlyspreading fire in July 2015.
Mrs White says it was lucky the fires at Bingley Court were spotted and smoke alarms sounded, but fears a disaster is inevitable.
“One day someone will die,” she said. “It really worries people. Just look at what happened with the Tannery.
“I keep saying to the management to put locks on all of the sheds.
“People go in there to do all sorts, including drug deals, and now they’re starting fires.
“My husband is disabled and if there was a fire outside the front of our flat we wouldn’t be able to get out. It’s really scary.”
DMG Property Management, which looks after the flats, was contacted for a response but refused to comment,
Little more than eight hours before the Bingley Court fires, crews were called to another arson attack in Canterbury.
A large pile of rubbish and some cypress trees had been set alight on land behind the derelict Coldharbour flats in Kingsmead Road, sending flames spiralling above the rooftops.
The blaze was put out within half-an-hour.