• THE notice issued by the Regulator of Social Housing on Friday July 21 is another damning indictment of Labour-run Camden’s record on fire safety.

The history of failures leading to the death of Magdalena Fink and what has happened since is important.

In January 2013 a fire risk assessment identified urgent works needed at 31 Daleham Gardens. That was simply ignored for the next four years.

In May 2017 a further risk assessment identified the works as outstanding and extremely urgent. Still nothing was done. On November 21 2017 there was the fatal fire.

Camden Council was savagely criticised by the coroner in April 2018 who made a series of orders for immediate action to prevent further deaths.

In February 2023 Camden Council were prosecuted for their fire safety failures and, in May 2023, fined £500,000. In mitigation they told the court, as they had told councillors, that they had learned the lesson of that fire and had put things right.

The significance of the regulator’s notice is simple: they have not.

Nearly six years after the fire, Camden is currently in breach of its fire safety duties. It does not have an effective system in place and it is putting tenants at risk; 9,000 actions are overdue, 1,500 of them for three years, and 400 of them high risk.

In 2019 6,000 actions were overdue – the situation is getting dramatically worse. Critically, many of the overdue actions are for straightforward jobs like installing smoke alarms. The absence of functioning smoke alarms was a major factor in the death of Magdalena Fink.

These failures cost lives. Keeping residents safe from fire is one of a council’s most basic duties. It is non-negotiable.

Our call to the Labour administration is straightforward: there can be no further excuses and no further delays. This must be dealt with before there is further tragedy.

CLLR TOM SIMON
Liberal Democrat
Leader of the Opposition