Fury as new Kensington council leader admits she never visited tower blocks before Grenfell tragedy
2 min read
The new leader of Kensington and Chelsea council today admitted she has never set foot inside one of the borough’s high rise residential blocks.
Tory Elizabeth Campbell - who starts the job next week after ex-leader Nicholas Paget-Brown was forced to resign over the Grenfell Tower tragedy - was condemned over the “jaw-dropping” confession.
Some 80 people have been declared dead after the west London high rise went up in flames last month with 255 survivors.
The council was accused of failing to listen to residents’ concerns about fire safety in the block and was attacked for its chaotic response to the disaster..
Appearing on Radio 4’s Today programme this morning Ms Campbell said it would take a “generation” to restore trust in the borough.
Asked whether she had visited the council blocks in the borough before the fire, she said: “I haven’t been into the high-rise council blocks before, but I am certainly doing that now.”
Former shadow housing minister Andy Slaughter, who represents neighbouring Hammersmith, took to Twitter to lay into Ms Campbell.
It comes as the Government admitted it still has no idea how many of the 4,000 untested tower blocks around the country remain at risk of being consumed by fire.
Shadow Housing Minister John Healey - who extracted the admission from the Government in a written parliamentary question - said the information gap was “totally unacceptable”.
Appearing on ITV 1's Good Morning Britain this morning he said the official inquiry into the Grenfell tragedy must leave “no stone unturned”.
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