Dagenham fire: 'My life has been completely upended'

Sarah Williams, who lost her home in the fire, says the government needs to intervene to help affected residents

Residents who were evacuated from a fire in a block of flats in Dagenham a month ago are still being housed in temporary accommodation amid a dispute about who should foot the bill.

Barking and Dagenham Council, which is funding the accommodation despite the residents not being council tenants, has called on block's management company to fulfil its "moral duty" and help out.

Eighty people were evacuated from the building in east London on 26 August. They say said the block's management company has "vanished".

Block Management UK Limited says it was employed by the freeholder only to look after the common areas, not individual flats. The freeholder, Arinium Limited, is yet to respond to the BBC.

The cause of the fire is still unknown

One displaced resident of Spectrum House, Sarah Williams, told the BBC: "My life has been completely upended, it's been traumatic. I don't know where I'm going to live in a week, in a month, in a year."

She said that a month on from the fire she had been left feeling "really angry and frustrated", adding: "Private companies take money from people like me and other leaseholders, and when catastrophe happens they vanish completely and leave the council to pick up the pieces."

She went on to say: "Block Management UK Limited and Arinium Limited have not been at the (residents') meetings - and they haven't put their hands in their pockets to even help with small expenses."

'Ongoing dialogue'

Barking and Dagenham Council told BBC London: "Block Management UK Ltd manage the building and we’re working with the government to ensure they comply with their legal obligations to residents. They should be leading on support for residents in this private block and they haven’t yet shown up to meet those affected – they have a moral duty to do so.

“In the meantime, and in lieu of this support from Block Management, we continue to provide affected residents with humanitarian support funded by the council including emergency accommodation."

It added: "We are in ongoing dialogue with the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government regarding our funding of this, and hope to be able to recoup the costs."

The council said it was also working with residents to help secure "longer-term accommodation options", depending on individual needs.

Irina Vasila lived on the second floor and still does not have a new place to live

Another resident, Irina Vasila, said she had been moved between three different hotels in the past month. She said her thoughts were on being "homeless and losing everything", adding that "all of us are desperate".

Ms Vasila said on the night of the fire she had shouted "help" from her second-floor flat while thick smoke poured in.

She said "for about an hour we breathed smoke, no oxygen at all". She says without the fire service rescuing her, she does not think she or her partner would have survived.

Ms Vasila said that since the fire, there had been very little communication from the freeholder, "just a few emails about insurance". She said residents had been relying on help from the council.

She said she was hoping the council would help her move into a new flat, but added that "nothing will replace what we lost and nothing will redress our trauma".

'Terrible thing'

The Labour MP for Dagenham and Rainham, Margaret Mullane, said: "It's been a really complex picture and the council undoubtedly have done an outstanding job."

She said it was a "terrible thing" to happen to residents and she "can't imagine what it must be like".

The MP said progress to help the residents had been slow and, adding that "the residents were quite right to be saying, 'it's a month on - come on'".

Scaffolding had been erected around Spectrum House months before the fire so that "non-compliant cladding" could be removed

Block Management UK Limited said in a statement: "We sympathise with all those affected by this situation.

"We are working with all relevant parties to provide support and have agreed a communications strategy with the council, which includes weekly and urgent updates to all residents."

It added that it had been hired by the building owner to "manage the common parts of the property, not the individual flats".

'Full force of government'

Residents have expressed their concerns about the role that cladding played in the fire, and works had been under way at the block to replace "non-compliant cladding".

The cause of the fire has still not been established. London Fire Brigade is investigating.

A spokesperson for the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government said of cladding issues nationally: "We have been clear that the progress on remediation has been too slow and must urgently be addressed.

"The full force of government will be brought to bear to make sure building owners fix this - with plans to accelerate the pace of remediation to be announced in the autumn."