Harman backs our safety campaign
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Leader of the Commons and Camberwell MP says demanded changes would improve tenants’ lives
The Leader of the House of Commons has given her backing to Inside Housing’s Safe as Houses campaign.
Harriet Harman, who is also deputy leader of the Labour Party and MP for Camberwell, said the campaign called for changes that would improve safety for all tenants and residents.
Six people died on 3 July this year when fire ripped through tower block Lakanal House, which is in Ms Harman’s Camberwell constituency.
The campaign makes three demands; to change building regulations to require carbon monoxide detectors to be fitted in new homes with gas appliances; to provide emergency procedure notices in all corridors of high-rise blocks; and to develop a national database of tower blocks and their most recent fire risk assessments.
Ms Harman said: ‘I am pleased to support the aims of Inside Housing’s Safe as Houses campaign. It calls for practical changes that would help improve safety for all tenants and residents.
‘I share the view of the whole community that the fire at Lakanal House was a terrible tragedy, the important and complex issues that contributed to the tragic deaths must be properly examined and lessons learned.’
Inside Housing has also seen a letter Ms Harman wrote to London fire commissioner Ron Dobson last week demanding that the London Fire Brigade review the advice it gives to residents about staying in their homes during a fire in their block.
She wrote: ‘The advice which was given to the residents [during the fire] in Lakanal House on 3 July was to remain in their flats. It is evident that those who died were the people who followed this advice and remained in their flats.
‘The fire in Lakanal House was not supposed to spread, but it did. People living in [nearby block] Marie Curie can’t be sure that, even with the improved fire precautions, the same thing won’t happen in their block, and that the fire evacuation advice is right.’
A spokesperson for the LFB said: ‘The national fire safety advice is based upon high-rise buildings being designed with walls, ceilings and doors that hold back fire and stop it from spreading into other flats or corridors for some time. This means that if there is a fire in another part of your building, you are usually safer staying in your flat.’
For more on the campaign see our Safe as Houses page
