One woman calls the response since the fire “an insult” that’s compounded their trauma, while the council leader says more power is needed to hold building owners and managing firms to account.
Residents who escaped a fire in a “deathtrap” block of flats have told Sky News they feel abandoned after both the management firm and owner of the building have failed to meet them.
The response has been branded “woeful” by the local council – who have had to pay £500,000 to support residents who have lost everything.
It’s been five weeks since people ran for their lives in the early hours after fire ripped through the privately owned Spectrum Building in east London during works to remove dangerous cladding.
Residents said fire alarms failed to sound and an escape route was padlocked, which meant some had to climb fences to flee.
“They don’t care… we are nothing to them,” said Kasia Stantke as we sat in her budget hotel room next to a busy dual carriageway where she’s been living for most of the past five weeks.
“We are worthless [to them], why would they not meet us?” she asked.
The 43-year-old management accountant describes the building that she, and 80 other residents, called home as a “death trap”.
She was horrified to learn various works to address fire safety problems had been ongoing for the past four years.
“The people responsible should be prosecuted, if guilty they should go to jail,” said Kasia.