Kensington and Chelsea council to pay £200K to Grenfell fire victims

By Jacob Phillips, Local Democracy Reporter

Kensington and Chelsea council (RBKC) is set to pay more than £200,000 to bereaved residents and survivors of the Grenfell fire after it failed to provide some people with adequate support.

The council admitted it did not provide all bereaved residents or survivors with money for food, travel and laundry while some of them were trying to find out if their relatives had died, a council document shows.

Some of the survivors were left without transitional payments for up to four months after the 2017 fire, which killed 72 people. 

Now the council is set to pay a total of £206,934.29 to 41 residents who were not appropriately supported during this time.

In the months after the fire, RBKC was supposed to provide families from Grenfell Tower and Grenfell Walk with financial support to help them with the urgent pressures they were facing.

The council has now decided to make the payments following the Grenfell Tower Inquiry. At Module 4 of the inquiry, earlier this year, the council apologised for the way it handled the immediate response to the fire.

RBKC admitted residents missed out on receiving support because their messages were not clear and consistent. The council also failed to keep records properly which meant some residents did not receive money when they should have.

The council has since been reviewing its records after bereaved and survivors of the fire gave evidence to the inquiry.

Many residents did not receive support because they were staying with friends and family rather than in emergency accommodation.

Others were moved to temporary or permanent homes very quickly after the fire before the payments were approved.

In total 32 out of 41 residents did not receive any transition payments from RBKC after the fire.

A council report from the director of Grenfell partnerships, Callum Wilson, said: “We have heard concerns from a number of closely bereaved survivor family members, who moved straight into temporary accommodation and who feel that it is not fair that they missed out on this support through no fault of their own.

“They were not provided with the support at the time because they had a kitchen with which to cook, but there was a lack of consistency given payments were made to people in serviced apartments who did have a kitchen.

“The bereaved survivors faced very specific challenges and understandably had other more important priorities in the immediate aftermath of the fire, including seeking news of their loved ones.

“It is reasonable to assume that families in this position did not have time to prepare food (even where they did have access to kitchen facilities) or to request financial support.”

Bereaved residents and survivors had to wait 16 weeks until the official list of those who died in the fire was announced by a coroner in November 2017.

In a statement at the Grenfell Inquiry RBKC said: “The council failed to provide the public with clear, consistent communications after the fire. As a result, individual residents missed out on receiving support to which they were entitled”

It added: “The council admits that failures in communication and problems with record keeping will have meant that some residents did not receive the money which they should have received.”

Pictured top: Members of the public at the memorial at the base of Grenfell Tower in London (Picture: PA)