Government’s ‘weak’ evacuation plans for disabled high-rise residents ‘fail to learn the lessons of Grenfell’

New post-Grenfell regulations designed to ensure disabled people can safely evacuate from high-rise residential buildings will instead continue to put their lives in grave danger, the government has been told.

Inclusion London said it was “deeply concerned” that lives would be lost because of the new approach, and that it “fails to learn the lessons of Grenfell”, as well as failing disabled people.

The warning came after the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG) confirmed that it will introduce a watered-down version of a recommendation made by the Grenfell Tower Inquiry.

The Grenfell Tower fire, which began in the early hours of 14 June 2017, led to the deaths of 72 residents, and analysis of the inquiry’s final report suggests about 20 of them were disabled people.

The subsequent inquiry called for a legal right to a personal emergency evacuation plan (PEEP) for all disabled residents who might find it difficult to “self-evacuate” from a high-rise residential building.

But the new regulations show that the government is instead introducing new residential personal emergency evacuation plans (residential PEEPs), a watered-down version of PEEPs.

Inclusion London called on the government to scrap the regulations, and co-produce “new, robust evacuation plans” with disabled people’s organisations.

It said the new duties were “weak, inconsistent and risk becoming a tick box exercise, and are not a way to ensure all disabled people can escape to safety”.

And it said they were “a significant step backwards in the fight for equitable fire safety and disability justice”.

Under residential PEEPs, the owner or manager in charge of a high-rise building – known as the responsible person (RP) – will have to take “reasonable endeavours” to identify vulnerable residents.

After carrying out a “person-centred fire risk assessment” with a resident, the RP must then use “reasonable endeavours” to agree an “emergency evacuation statement” with the resident, while the RP will have an “ongoing duty” to review the assessment and statement.

The RP will also have to share basic information about the disabled resident with the local fire and rescue service, including what assistance they might need to evacuate the building.

The government has made clear that it would be up to the RP to decide what measures are “reasonable and proportionate”, while the disabled resident may have to pay for some of those measures.

But Inclusion London said that any safety system “where only those who can afford to pay get protection is a two-tier safety system”, and that this was “not only unreasonable, it is inhumane”, as well as being discriminatory.

Inclusion London also accused the government of promising that RPs would have to use their “best endeavours” to identify residents who need an evacuation plan, but that this has been downgraded in the regulations to “reasonable endeavours”, which “fundamentally alters the responsibility expected of building owners and managers”.

It is also concerned that the new process will create too many hurdles for the resident to clear to secure a residential PEEP.

And it said the regulations should apply to all buildings where disabled people live, and not just those of a certain height.

Adam Gabsi, co-chair of Inclusion London, said: “We are extremely disappointed with what we see in the new regulations.

“This is not what the Grenfell inquiry has called for, and not what we have campaigned for.

“These are not PEEPs. They are tick-box exercises that shift responsibility away from those in power and onto individuals at risk.

“This will cost disabled people’s lives.”

He added: “This is another attack on our rights, along with proposed changes to disability benefits and assisted dying.

“We had hoped that PEEPs would finally serve as an example of fairness, safety, and equality being placed at the heart of government policy.”

But he said the regulations were instead “another reminder of how disabled lives are too often seen as optional, costly, disposable, or unworthy of protection.

“We cannot and will not support regulations that we believe will lead to disabled people falling through the cracks and dying.”

Caroline Collier, from Inclusion Barnet’s Campaign for Disability Justice, said: “Your home should be a place of ultimate safety and refuge.

“Yet, for disabled people living in high-rise flats, this has been fundamentally undermined by this watered-down version of the PEEPs regulations.

“With 1.8 million disabled people facing up to a 40-year wait for accessible homes and the lack of choice forcing many into dangerous high-rise flats, this tick-box approach to regulations is wrong and irresponsible.

“To ignore legitimate safety recommendations made by the inquiry is nothing short of discrimination.

“Disabled people absolutely must be involved in co-producing plans to ensure that everyone’s lives are valued and protected, and disabled people being required to pay for basic safety measures is utterly unacceptable.”

MHCLG had not commented by noon today (Thursday).

Picture: Close-up of Grenfell Tower with banners in June 2018 (c) by Carcharoth is licensed under Creative CommonsAttribution-Share Alike 4.0 International

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