Cllr Georgia Gould

• FOLLOWING your lead story I wanted to write about the Chalcots, and also about housing more generally (Mum: I can’t go back to the tower, October 19).

We want the highest standard of safety for our residents. Many of the hundreds of clad buildings around the country haven’t started to remove cladding but we know residents are very concerned so we are acting swiftly to remove it – we expect it to be finished by Christmas.

Until it is removed we’ll have fire wardens in place as an extra precaution along with a wide range of safety improvements.

Grenfell has changed how everyone in this country looks at safety but we need to know how our housing blocks got to this point. This will be considered carefully through an independent review.

I know the experience has been deeply difficult and disruptive for many and we have offered extra support for anyone who needs it. This includes everything from safety advice to mental health support. I want all residents to know that we are here to support them.

Every single council home used as temporary accommodation during the evacuation is needed for a family or individual in desperate housing need. That is the nature of the housing crisis in London.

The need is overwhelming but while the council is working as hard as it can to build new council housing we cannot realise our ambitions without support from national government.

That’s why I’m working with other councils to ask the government to:

• back us to build and lift restrictions on council borrowing so we can work with our tenants to build the next generation of public housing;

• lift the housing benefit cap to help us house our homeless residents in Camden;

• allow us to make local decisions on rents with our tenants;

• fund councils to carry out essential fire safety works.

Government choices are making the housing crisis worse for our residents. We are ready to act and we need government to get behind us.

CLLR GEORGIA GOULD
Leader of Camden Council