Residents of London tower block warned of blaze in a blog SEVEN MONTHS ago

Twelve have been confirmed dead as of Wednesday evening, but that toll is expected to rise. It would have been more, if not for the excellent response of London’s emergency services and heroic inhabitants, who helped their neighbours to safety.

A grim conclusion lies at the end of it all. For many of Grenfell’s residents, this was just an accident waiting to happen… a serious concern that fell on deaf ears.

In the aftermath of this inferno, it has come to light that the tenants of the tower had long been campaigning to improve fire safety regulations, through a blog posted on WordPress in 2016.

Read: Tragedy hits London again as tower block fire claims ‘several lives’

They had begged their landlords KCTMO (Kensington and Chelsea Tenant Management Organisation) to amend serious health and safety violations. Nothing came of it.

The blog ends with a harrowing, chilling message that weighs heavy in its poignancy. A desperate warning to the KCTMO about what would happen next:

Other concerns raised in the blog:

. Only a catastrophic event – resulting in a serious loss of life – will expose the ineptitude of our landlord, the KCTMO, and end the dangerous living conditions inflicted upon their tenants

. The Grenfell Action Group believe that the KCTMO narrowly averted a major fire disaster at Grenfell Tower in 2013 when residents experienced a period of terrifying power surges that were subsequently found to have been caused by faulty wiring.

. In October 2015 a fire ripped through another KCTMO property, the 14 storey Adair Tower in North Kensington. The London Fire Brigade found that the KCTMO had not been looking after the safety of residents properly

. In the last twenty years the residents of Grenfell have received no proper fire safety instructions from the KCTMO. Residents were informed by a temporary notice stuck in the lift and one announcement in a recent regeneration newsletter that they should remain in their flats in the event of a fire.

This was the FIFTH blog concerned residents had raised about fire safety at the tower, and the most recent. Thoughts are always with the victims in these times, but attention must soon turn to an inquiry.

You can read the full blog (and other four) here:

https://grenfellactiongroup.wordpress.com/2016/11/20/kctmo-playing-with-fire/