195 Aftermath of the fire: The Rest Centres

The Grenfell Tower Inquiry Podcast

BBC

News

4.8 • 627 Ratings

🗓️ 13 May 2022

⏱️ 33 minutes

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Summary

This week, the Inquiry continued to investigate the events immediately after the fire by digging deeper into what happened at local rest centres which were opened to support survivors. An official who volunteered to help with the relief effort described the scene at the largest centre as a shambles, with chaotic scenes, an intimidating armed police presence and a lack of organisation. The authorities tried to send some residents from the walkway flats next to the tower back to their homes, despite them having broken front doors and lacking gas or communal heating. And we heard that at the time of the Grenfell disaster that tower block fires were not included in the official London Risk Register – even though it did mention wildfires and moorland fires. 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	BBC Sounds, Music, Radio, podcasts.
0:05.2	Hello and welcome to the Grenfell Tower Inquiry podcast with me, Kate Lamble.
0:10.3	Continuing its investigation into what happened in the immediate aftermath of the fire,
0:14.6	this week the inquiry had a detailed account of what happened in the rest centres which
0:19.7	opened to support survivors.
0:21.9	An official who volunteered to help with the relief effort described one rest centre as a shambles.
0:27.7	It was shocking to see my first impression was, what is this? What's going on?
0:33.9	Let's get started with the evidence then. On the 14th of June 2017, just over a thousand people
0:40.0	either escaped Grenfell Tower or were evacuated from nearby buildings. They all needed somewhere
0:45.9	to find shelter, food and support. In the early hours, many community and faith centres in the area
0:52.1	opened their doors in an attempt to help.
0:55.0	One of them was the Rugby Portobello Club.
0:57.7	Mark Zims is the chief executive of the P3 charity group which owns and runs it.
1:03.0	Counsel to the inquiry, Zinat Islam, read from his written witness statement
1:06.6	describing what he saw as he arrived at 7.30 in the morning.
1:11.2	People were sitting in the sports hall and all along the stairs with blankets wrapped around them.
1:16.3	I would say that we had over 100 people in the building of all ages in various states of confusion and distress at the time.
1:24.8	Mark Sims spoke to staff to work out what they would do. You know, just the basic
1:29.3	things like making sure people have got stuff to eat, making sure that people have got access
1:32.9	to toilets, really simple things like making sure that the toilets were constantly cleaned and
1:37.9	things like that. So just kind of moving into a holding pattern to help arrive because I was
1:43.3	confident that that's what would happen.
	...

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