Residents in ACM-clad development describe ‘mental anguish’ after fire put two in hospital

New Providence Wharf is one of the remaining high rises in the UK that is still covered in ACM cladding almost four years after the fire at Grenfell. Ballymore has said that the ACM cladding on the building "did not combust and played no part in causing or facilitating the fire".

After a long-running debate over who should pay for remediation work, the building’s freeholder, Ballymore, has secured £8m worth of government grant funding to fund the works and it is understood that the contractor was set to begin this coming Monday.

Mark Cowan, who lives in a different block from the one where the fire started, said he was first alerted to the fire when he saw people shouting from their balconies, followed by the sight of smoke.

He said he took it upon himself to evacuate the building with his wife, who had had a heart attack the week before, and said there were no alarms in his building alerting him to the fire.

“We’ve had stress and anxiety for some time and we think the stress of this was a contributing factor to my wife having a heart attack last week. She’s with me now and this is not causing us any good at all,” he said.

In a letter sent to residents last month, seen by Inside Housing, Ballymore said it was increasing the frequency of waking watches from every hour to every 15 minutes.

“Should an event occur the waking watch staff would raise an air horn and commence evacuation proceedings,” the letter said.

However only one resident who Inside Housing spoke to said they were evacuated by a “fire marshal” with a horn, and several other residents said they heard no horn or alarm.

Iman Anais, who lived in the block next to the one where the fire broke out, said: “There was no alarm in the building that went off. No one told us to evacuate. No one knew anything.”

Asad Mehmood, who lived on the ninth floor, said: “There was no alarm, which was strange because they have been testing it a lot in the past few weeks.”

He added: “I saw the smoke and heard people screaming and then I heard a bang at my door with the building managers telling me to get out.”

Ballymore said all the residents at New Providence Wharf were "evacuated from the building in a timely manner, in accordance with the building’s fire safety protocols".

Multiple residents also reported that there was at least a 15-minute gap between the fire brigade arriving and them beginning to extinguish the fire with water.

One resident from a neighbouring building who wished to remain anonymous said: “They took so long to go up there. They were looking for the hydrant but they couldn’t find it quickly enough.

“They couldn’t seem to go up and I thought ‘what are they waiting for, it’s smoking’ and then suddenly I see one of the balconies go red and the next thing I know was ‘boom’ – it started flying up to the other floors.

“They started trying to put it out but the water wouldn’t reach. They had to wait for another fire engine with a ladder to come.”

Mr McCallum said he thought the fire brigade did not have a long enough ladder to tackle the blaze, which he said was “surprising bearing in mind this area has got a certain amount of high rises and buildings with ACM cladding”.

Andrew Wood, the councillor for Canary Wharf, where the building is located, said that the fire brigade “appear to have had issues with connection to water” and that he believed it also took them time to get a tall ladder.

London Fire Brigade deputy commissioner Richard Mills said: “London Fire Brigade was called to an incident at 0855 this morning at the New Providence Wharf in Poplar.

“We had a total of 125 firefighters and 20 fire engines fighting the fire. The first crew arrived within four minutes and the second crew arrived within seven minutes, with an aerial appliance arriving in under 20 minutes.

“The fire was on the eighth, ninth and tenth floors resulting in us carrying out 35 rescues, 22 using our fire escape hoods, and a further 18 people self-evacuated.

“This was a very dynamic and challenging incident and clearly there will be some people that will be looking at this and linking it to the tragic events of the Grenfell Tower fire.

“Our thoughts remain with the families and residents of the Grenfell community and there will be some very challenging memories that may be brought back as a result of this incident.

“London Fire Brigade continue to learn from every incident that we attend and we will look at investigating this incident and the cause of the fire.

“Additionally we also recognise that there is much more work to be done about how we provide our service to the community in high-rise and we have learnt and are developing our procedures to improve those capabilities going forward.

“I would like to take this opportunity to thank my crews for an incredible and arduous incident and for the amount of work they did to resolve the incident safely and effectively.

“In the rescue operations, one of my firefighters did sustain an injury in carrying out those rescues. I would like to also take the opportunity to thank our partners for everything they have done to support us at this incident.”

A representative from Ballymore said: "At approximately 9am on Friday May 7, a fire broke out in an apartment on the 8^th floor of a building in the New Providence Wharf development. Thanks to the rapid and professional response of the London Fire Brigade the fire was quickly contained, with all residents evacuated from the building in a timely manner, in accordance with the building’s fire safety protocols.

"Due to the fire brigade response and to the performance of the fire safety systems on the building, the fire damage was contained to one apartment and to two balconies of apartments above. Although we expect most residents to return to their homes this evening, Ballymore is providing accommodation in a nearby hotel for those who require it.

"We understand how difficult and distressing today has been for our residents and we are grateful for the patience they have demonstrated. Our response team on the ground will continue to support them in any way we can.

"The cause of the fire has yet to be determined and we continue to work closely with the London Fire Brigade during their investigations. We can however confirm that the ACM cladding on the building did not combust and played no part in causing or facilitating the fire.

"Enabling works to remove the ACM cladding have been underway for two weeks prior to today’s incident. The works will recommence as soon as possible."