193 Aftermath of the fire: The Council and BSRs

The Grenfell Tower Inquiry Podcast

BBC

News

4.8 • 627 Ratings

🗓️ 29 April 2022

⏱️ 42 minutes

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Summary

The Inquiry continued to hear evidence about the immediate aftermath of the fire. Rebecca Blackburn, a former Contingency Planning Officer for the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, described scenes inside the town hall as “pandemonium”. Her boss told the inquiry he regrets that he didn’t speak up about weaknesses in the council’s emergency plans and accepted he was too late in making some decisions about the response to the disaster. Survivors and relatives described chaotic scenes trying to find information about their loved ones and callousness in their treatment by the council. Presenter: Kate Lamble Producers: Sharon Hemans and Kristiina Cooper Researcher: Marcia Veiga Sound Engineer: Gareth Jones Editor: Hugh Levinson

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello and welcome to the Grenfell Tower Inquiry podcast with me Kate Lamble.
0:09.9	This week we heard the first evidence from the local council, the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea,
0:15.1	about their response in the immediate aftermath of the fire.
0:18.5	A former emergency planner at the council described scenes of pandemonium
0:22.7	inside the town hall. With an incident such of this size, if you lose it at the start, it's very
0:29.1	difficult to get back. And I think that might be why they were so reluctant to get help.
0:34.3	Her boss wished he'd spoken up about weaknesses in the council's contingency plans.
0:39.2	I wish I had made more of a noise at times rather than just being the dutiful local authority
0:45.4	manager. Let's get started with the evidence then. In November 2004, a law was passed,
0:51.5	the Civil Contingencies Act, which made local authorities legally responsible for
0:56.3	assessing the risk of an emergency occurring and maintaining plans to ensure they could act in such a
1:02.2	situation. Local authorities became what's known as category one responders, like police and
1:08.6	firefighters. It meant organisations like the Royal Borough of Kensington
1:12.4	and Chelsea would now be at the heart of any emergency response. Nearly 12 years later, on the
1:18.9	morning of the 14th of June 2017, the first 999 call was made from flat 16 of Grenfell Tower
1:25.8	at six minutes to one.
1:33.6	The manager of RBKC's contingency planning team, David Kerry, was phoned around an hour and a half later. David Kerry wrote notes from the call he received. Lead counsel to the inquiry,
1:39.4	Richard Millett, read from them. Grenville Tower, W11, 1TQ, police call 0203, and then it says, could you read that, something, trapped?
1:49.7	Yes, evacuees.
1:51.0	Ah, evacuees, trapped, casualties expected.
1:55.4	25 pump plus.
1:57.5	Pumps are fire engines.
	...

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