Residents were asked to leave at a moment’s notice

FIRE safety works at the evacuated Chalcots estate are expected to cost £35million, with the additional cost of re-housing residents for weeks on end yet to be calculated.

The drastic step was taken on June 23 after the London Fire Brigade found major safety failings, which in combination with the discovery that the buildings are wrapped in flammable cladding led inspectors to judge the blocks as unsafe to live in.

Urgent works to the five tower blocks along Adelaide Road have already begun and around 4,000 people have spent a second weekend out of their homes.

Alongside the removal and replacement of the cladding, teams of workers will address issues with incorrectly fitted gas pipes and faulty fire doors, both of which could allow smoke and flames to move through the building in the event of a fire. This work is anticipated to cost £7million per block.

The council are also preparing to spend up to a further £21million on the three towers in Ampthill Square, Mornington Crescent, depending on the results of fire safety tests that are being carried out on samples of cladding.

The cost of the evacuation operation is expected to run into millions on top of this and includes paying for accommodation and food. By Saturday last week Camden Council said they had already spent £500,000 booking people in hotels and temporary accommodation.

In some cases council staff have arranged accommodation directly and they are also offering to reimburse people to the tune of £200 per room, per night, if they make their own bookings with hotels or through Airbnb.

The problems found by inspectors at the Chalcots relate to “compartmentation” of the building’s design. It is this system – which means that each home should be able to contain a fire for up to 60 minutes without spreading to neighbouring flats – that informs the “stay put” advice for residents to remain in their homes if a fire breaks out.

Cllr Theo Blackwell, the Town Hall’s finance chief, said in a briefing on the costs of the operation last week that their would be “no impact on frontline services” with money coming from the council’s reserves.

He said: “Through long-term planning and budget reform we have worked hard to build up financial resilience over time, so we are able to withstand unexpected costs of major operations. This resilience is part of the general running of an organisation the size of a UK top 100 company.”

A council report, agreeing the terms of a contract for the Chalcots work, said the money will come from “housing capital resources…and if necessary some short-term borrowing”.
It added: “The Council will carefully consider its options in terms of seeking to recoup the cost of the works from it contractors and any sums recoverable will be offset against HRA reserves and any short term borrowing.”

What went wrong?

• Gas mains pipes that travel vertically through the blocks were not installed properly. The pipes, which are hidden in a cupboard at the end of communal hallways, were not fitted with appropriate “fire stops” – meaning there were gaps in the structure of the building that could allow smoke and flames to travel between floors in the event of a fire. This was the biggest risk to safety.
• The installation of other services, like electricity cables and phone lines, had in other places “breached the ability to stop fire spreading”.
• Many of the fire doors in the communal areas, while meeting standards at the time they were installed, were no longer considered robust enough in light of the fact the building was wrapped in flammable cladding.
• Front doors to individual flats were also sub-standard, with many missing “self-closing mechanisms”, which are vital in ensuring that fire do not spread from one flat to another and allow people to escape safely.