Disabled campaigners call on government to take seven key steps in response to final Grenfell report

Disabled people’s organisations (DPOs) have called on the government to take seven key steps in response to the final report of the Grenfell Tower Inquiry, which they believe would lead to a “sea change” in housing law and policy for disabled residents.

They spoke out after the inquiry told the government last week to take urgent action to prioritise the safety of disabled people and other “vulnerable” residents who live in high-rise residential buildings.

This week’s call came from four DPOs – Inclusion London, Disability Rights UK, Harrow Association of Disabled People and Spinal Injuries Association – and the campaigning disabled people’s leaseholder group Claddag.

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

The inquiry’s chair, Sir Martin Moore-Bick, has criticised the “persistent failure to give sufficient importance to the demands of fire safety, particularly the safety of vulnerable people”.

The five organisations said this week that disablism and racism were both “strong contributors” to the events that led to the fire, “including the many ways in which the views and complaints of residents were devalued, disregarded and ignored”.

They want the government to implement the inquiry’s recommendation – made nearly five years ago – to impose a duty on owners or managers of high-rise residential buildings to prepare a personal emergency evacuation plan (PEEP) for all residents who might find it difficult to “self-evacuate”.

They welcomed the new government’s apparent commitment to meet this recommendation, which they contrasted with previous Conservative governments that “unforgivably and repeatedly” avoided implementing it.

They also called on the new government to “act immediately” on the report’s recommendation that it should “urgently” review the definition of a “higher-risk building” so that it depends partly on whether there are disabled residents who might find it difficult to evacuate in an emergency, rather than just depending on the building’s height.

The five organisations want the government to extend the PEEPs requirement to all residential buildings covered by the fire safety order, the main piece of legislation governing fire safety in buildings in England and Wales.

And they say the government should implement recommendations in the inquiry report that highlight the importance of taking account of the risks to disabled people, when drawing up a fire safety strategy.

This week’s statement also makes it clear that DPOs should be involved “from the outset” in developing any proposals to improve the safety of disabled residents.

Last week’s inquiry report found that concerns that new fire safety guidance in 2011 did not include advice on evacuating disabled people from high-rise buildings were “simply brushed aside” because the coalition government at the time “considered it too difficult to find a solution to the problem”.

The five organisations say the rights and risks to life of disabled people were dismissed by the government and viewed as “too difficult”, reflecting a “culture of indifference in the years leading up to the fire” which was enabled by “the consistent failure” to involve DPOs, disabled people and specialists when developing proposals.

They called on the new government to “stand against the neglect, indifference, and discrimination of the past” by collaborating with disabled people.

Elspeth Grant, a fire safety and disability specialist, from consultancy Triple A Solutions, who raised concerns about the guidance in 2011, has backed this week’s statement.

The statement also highlights the need for the government to take action on the accessible housing crisis, including the introduction of laws to ensure all new housing is built to the M4(2) standard of accessibility, with 10 per cent built to the wheelchair-accessible M4(3) standard*.

And they say there should be regular, fully accessible consultation with all disabled people living in residential blocks on issues affecting the safety and repair of those buildings.

Their final call is for a legal right to “wrap around support” for disabled residents when the buildings they live in are subject to “disruptive and distressing” building improvements, such as the removal of dangerous cladding.

*Homes built to the M4(2) standard have 16 accessible or adaptable features, similar to the Lifetime Homes standard developed in the early 1990s, to make homes more easily adaptable for lifetime use, while M4(3) homes are those that are supposed to be fully wheelchair-accessible

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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