Residents were treated ‘with a certain amount of disdain’ says Grenfell ward councillor

By Julia Gregory, local democracy reporter

Residents who raised complaints about their council homes were treated “with a certain amount of disdain”,  a Grenfell ward councillor told the Inquiry into the fatal fire.

Judith Blakeman raised many complaints for residents who lived in council homes looked after by the arms-length Kensington and Chelsea Tenant Management Organisation.

The Labour councillor for Notting Dale knew more than 30 of the 72 residents who died in the fire.

She became a councillor in 1978 and raised her concerns about fire safety at Grenfell Tower the day after the fatal fire at Lakanal House in Camberwell, south London in 2009.

She invited the TMO’s chief executive to visit the tower  and see how residents would leave via the single staircase if there was a fire there. This was before the renovation and the building was covered in the cladding which proved so deadly. The visit never happened.

Three years later in 2012, she joined the TMO board after she was appointed as a Labour party nominee, but she explained her membership of the board was fraught.

After the fatal fire  at Grenfell she told police: “Generally the TMO treated ward councillors and residents with a  fair amount of disdain.”

She explained in her police statement: “Any issues raised were deemed an exaggeration.

And it seemed that the TMO believed that ward councillors were being pushed by the Grenfell Action Group because we didn’t like what was written about us. This was not the case.”

She said some of the residents’ concerns were “absolutely  justified”.

Councillor Blakeman explained that she told the TMO chief executive Robert Black that he should look at the complaints highlighted on the blog.

She was unaware that TMO staff had been blocked from reading the blog, until it was revealed at the Inquiry.

She said “their responses to me tended to be bland rather than active responses.”

It concerned her and she explained that she had other issues at the TMO.

“On one occasion I asked for my dissent on one decision to be recorded and that prompted a full attack from Robert Black.”

In 2016 the London Fire Brigade issued a deficiency notice highlighting a catalogue of concerns about fire safety at Grenfell Tower.

They included door self closers which did not work, fire doors which didn’t fit, emergency routes compromised and problems with the smoke extraction.

Councillor Blakeman said she was not told about it at the TMO board and if she had been, it would have added weight to her arguments.

This followed nine deficiency notices from the LFB about homes the TMO managed. It planned a three-to-five-year programme to replace faulty self closers on doors across the estates.

Councillor Blakeman recounted how she raised concerns about the renumbering of floors after the refurbishment at Grenfell as it could confuse the emergency services.

Residents discovered  after sending an FOI to the Royal Mail it was not behind the change, although they were told it had been.

Councillor Blakeman said residents and councillors were “misled”, although the TMO’s chief executive Robert Black rejected this.

She also sat down with residents Edward Daffarn and William Thompson to draw up a matrix of 28 problems at Grenfell Tower which she forwarded to the TMO’s head of regeneration Peter Maddison.

By late 2015 many residents had concerns about the refurbishment and fire safety.

Councillor Blakeman suggested they handed in a petition to the council.

It was referred to the housing and property scrutiny committee in January 2016.

Mr Daffarn told councillors that “residents had been belittled, ignored or sidelined”.

Instead of the independent review of the TMO which residents wanted, the management body was allowed to investigate itself.

When the report was discussed, councillor Blakeman was not allowed to join discussions because of any conflict of interest because she was on the TMO board and was asked to sit in the public gallery.

And she revealed she was “reprimanded” by the TMO when she put her concerns in writing.

She also said 19 issues she raised for residents were treated as “member’s inquiries”, rather than complaints.

Investigations by the TMO and RBKC cleared the property management body of any wrongdoing in the way they handled the renovation at Grenfell and dealt with residents.

At the end of her two days of evidence, councillor Blakeman who wore a Grenfell badge on her dark suit said: “I watched the fire. I knew over 30 of the people including children who died in that fire. And that fire should not have happened.