• IN the light of the Grenfell Tower fire, which killed 72 people, we fully understand landlords’ need to carry out fire risk assessments to ensure the safety of their residents.

However, as the article about Origin Housing shows (Tenants: We’ve been ordered to remove our lockdown sanctuary, July 15), this needs to be done in an open and transparent way, and in conjunction with tenants, to avoid the anger that has obviously been caused.

It would appear that this is particularly important when it impacts on outside communal areas that are a well-used and an important resource for the community; especially so when they are living in overcrowded homes during a global pandemic.

We recently had a fire risk assessment carried out in our office and, after reading the very detailed report produced by a specialist consultant, it quickly became clear to us that the process can be a very technical one and often difficult to understand if you are not familiar with such things.

This confirms to us the clear need for good communication from the landlord about their assessment, and to make time and an effort to explain to the tenants how and why such decisions are being made.

We regularly meet senior managers in Origin Housing and one of the issues that comes up time and time again from the tenants, who attend with us, is the need to improve communication across all of their services; whether it be face-to-face, over the phone, or in writing.

Origin have also stated that one of their “ambitions for 2025” is to create a “partnership approach with residents”.

Our question to them is: why wait until then and wouldn’t dealing with something as important as fire safety in 2021 be a good time to start this?

It should also be said that these are not problems limited to one particular landlord, as we have also heard the same issues being reported from tenants of other housing associations operating in Camden, through meetings of our Camden Housing Association Residents Group.

ROBERT TAYLOR
Camden Federation of Private Tenants
@CamdenFPT
www.cfpt.org.uk