You have to go up another level on the council to find out what happened. >> Grenfell cladding approved by residents was swapped for > View this hearing. And most significantly the Council signed off on a refurbishment contract with the contractor Rydon, which wrapped the tower in highly flammable ACM cladding in a drive to save cost. We recognise our responsibility to ensure that the investigative process is not hampered or undermined in any way.. KCTMO is a tenant controlled TMO and the great ,majority of its board are resident members. The fire was a foreseeable consequence of collective political inaction to regulate health and safety in tower blocks. The fire started in a faulty fridge freezer on the 4th floor of the 24-storey, 120-flat residential block in West London, rapidly spreading throughout most of the building and engulfing the outside cladding within 45 minutes. This allows decision makers to focus on the relevant and appropriate issues and prioritize their time and resources. Kensington and Chelsea TMO has previously received a three-star status from the Audit Commission for its services. >> /Font << Anne Power here has made a solid case that it was only a TMO in the most superficial, misleading sense. /XObject << Frustrated with remote council landlords who seem not to care, tenants often form a local group that fights for local control over local tasks to make their estate work day-to-day repairs, caretaking, empty property, nuisance, rubbish, environmental and social problems. 3 0 obj /F8 11 0 R /CropBox [0.0 0.0 595.2 857.28] Shirley Phillips, 72, who lives on the second floor in a neighbouring block, said: I am worried, but is worrying going to help? She had read on Facebook that one of the tenants wants everyone to rally around and call for the cladding to be removed. /F2 17 0 R /F4 19 0 R On Monday, the inquiry saw chains of email between Mr Chapman and KCTMO, in which residents were refused an independent fire safety inspection of the building. It has now lost its role on the estate and may soon be disbanded. It needs to be more like the Housing Liaison Board we had in Ladywood until the council chose to get rid of it (on bogus excuse) because some people have other priorities than honest effective tenant involvement. The actual management agreement between the borough and effectively the Director of Housing, who became the CEO of the TMO, is still unclear. Language links are at the top of the page across from the title. This post originally appeared on the Oxford Human Rights Hub. /F11 12 0 R /Annots [] /F5 20 0 R Is climate change killing Australian wine? Grenfell Tower, the fire, and its aftermath, Kensington and Chelsea London Borough Council, "The Housing (Right to Manage) Regulations 1994", "Tenant management organisations the best-kept secret in housing", "Kensington and Chelsea Tenant Management Organisation The Board", "Financial statements for year end 31st March 2013", "Kensington and Chelsea Tenant Management Organisation Anti Social Behaviour Form", "London fire: Six killed as Grenfell Tower engulfed", "London high-rise fire leaves multiple people dead, dozens injured and others missing", "Fire safety concerns raised by Grenfell Tower residents in 2012", "People died thinking 'they didn't listen', says ex-Grenfell residents' group chair", "Private company responsible for Grenfell Tower maintenance asks public to donate money to help fire victims", "Grenfell management company stripped of responsibility for estate", "Grenfell Tower firm has housing contract terminated", "Grenfell firm to pass responsibility for homes to council", Criticism of the response to the Grenfell Tower fire, Kensington and Chelsea Tenant Management Organisation, Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Kensington_and_Chelsea_TMO&oldid=1150172436, 1996 establishments in the United Kingdom, Tenant management organisations in England, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License 3.0, This page was last edited on 16 April 2023, at 18:16. Original reporting and incisive analysis, direct from the Guardian every morning, 2023 Guardian News & Media Limited or its affiliated companies. /Xi8 14 0 R endobj (modern). Of the description in 2013 of the TMO as having a reactive approach to maintenance, Ms Jevans said she thought the organisation understood about planned preventative maintenance and that it was working to pick up this gap. /F9 13 0 R Rydon, the company involved in the upgrading of Grenfell, reclad four 22-storey blocks and one 18-storey block in the Swiss Cottage estate as part of a 18m revamp 11 years ago. Anne Power is Professor of Social Policy and Head of LSE Housing and Communities. Trellick Tower is a listed building and at least they cant put any cladding on it. The board decided that it would be in the best interests of all residents that the services which the TMO provided were handed back to the council while it carries out a consultation about the future management of its housing stock. /F3 18 0 R /F9 13 0 R A spokesperson said: As we continue to cooperate fully with the investigation into the tragic events at Grenfell Tower, Kensington and Chelsea Tenant Management Organisation has to put on hold all requests for disclosure of relevant information. A new Interim Director of Housing should take over, to work with the boroughs Interim CEO to develop a decent housing service. The year before the fire, Mr Daffarn's blog, which he wrote with Francis O'Connor, said: "It is a truly terrifying thought but the Grenfell Action Group firmly believe that only a catastrophic event will expose the ineptitude and incompetence of our landlord, the KCTMO, and bring an end to the dangerous living conditions and neglect of health and safety legislation that they inflict upon their tenants and leaseholders.". The fire regulations are clearly out of date and it was a political decision not to update them.. The remains of Grenfell Tower. In 2012, Studio E Architects proposed zinc cladding with a mineral-rich fire-retardant polyethylene core, a decision approved by residents, according to planning papers. Kensington and Chelsea Tenant Management Grenfell Towers landlords appeared to have a reactive approach to maintenance dating back to a report in 2013, a public inquiry has heard. /Contents 8 0 R /F1 16 0 R They fear their lives could also be at risk if the cladding is found to be an issue in the Grenfell inferno, which has killed at least 17 people. Publicity about the fake TMO puts their track record at risk. However, KCTMO continues to exist as a legal entity so that it can be represented at the Grenfell Tower Inquiry. Run by a board of 13 tenants, it was described at the time as "one of Britain's most ambitious property management schemes".[5]. Grenfell Ultimately, in the case of Grenfell Tower, the overriding objective of the (corporate bodys) governance framework should have been to keep residents safe. Edward Daffarn described Grenfell Tower's management as a "mini-mafia", Seventy-two people died in the Grenfell Tower fire on 14 June 2017. Both Kensington and Chelsea Council and the Kensington and Chelsea Tenant Management Organisation (TMO) have been told they may have committed manslughter. /Resources << Several homeless families were housed in ex-council flats in Grenfell Tower. /Annots [] /MediaBox [0.0 0.0 595.2 857.28] This changed in 1995 when Kensington and Chelsea Tenant Management Organisation (KCTMO) was established to manage 10,000 local council properties. KCTMO was set-up as a means of escaping the threat of the (Conservative) governments Compulsory Competitive Tendering (CCT) regime in 1996. Edward Daffarn and another resident repeatedly attacked the Kensington and Chelsea Tenant Management Organisation (KCTMO) in a blog. /MediaBox [0.0 0.0 595.2 857.28] The DeKalb Area Rental Association is a nonprofit, educational organization representing rental housing units in DeKalb, Illinois, and its immediate The secret mine that hid the Nazis' stolen treasure. endobj The chief executive of KCTMO, Robert Black, stood down on Friday to concentrate on assisting with the investigation and inquiry. stream << KCTMO declined to comment on the material swap. Kensington and Chelsea decided to keep the name Kensington and Chelsea TMO, in the hope that tenants would identify with it. >> The minutes, seen by the Guardian, recorded: Rydon have completed the mock-up for the cladding and it was confirmed that the planners are viewing the colours and fixing detail on 17 July The initial feedback on the cladding, following a walk around prior to the meeting, is that the vertical sections need design work., It added in a post-meeting note: The initial feedback from the planners is that they would probably prefer the champagne to brushed aluminium and they were not that keen on the face fix.. A tolerance was set for fire performance on the project and both products were within that range, the Guardian understands, but the aluminium panels were considered more combustible. Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged inPlease refresh your browser to be logged in, Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in, Please refresh your browser to be logged in, Kensington and Chelsea Tenant Management Organisation, Grenfell residents looked down on by housing chiefs, inquiry hears, Grenfell manager binned notes on refurbishment after fire, Grenfell contractor misrepresented cladding price to pocket savings, Firms in Grenfell Tower inquiry given immunity from prosecution, Grenfell report must criticise authorities, say survivors and bereaved, List of Grenfell's vulnerable tenants 'was 15 years out of date', Grenfell Tower manager confronted over 'cheap' refurbishment. They range from around 100 to 1500 rented properties in a single estate or area. /F1 16 0 R /Font << Meanwhile, Camden council has been asked to urgently review cladding on five high-rises in the borough after tenants discovered that the contractor used in the Grenfell Tower block refurbishment was also responsible for renovation of their buildings. You are quite right Robin a key problem (maybe the key problem) was a lack of tenant involvement. There are smoke alarms, but no fire alarms in the building, said one tenant, who did not want to be named. (There was) nothing addressing the individual parts of it, it was just very generic.. A list of amendments to the 9.2m contract between Kensington and Chelsea Tenant Management Organisation (KCTMO) and Rydon, the builder for the Yet overall, TMOs have outperformed their local council landlords on rent arrears, re-letting flats, speed of repair, cost and tenant satisfaction. Giving evidence at the inquiry into the disaster, Mr Daffarn said he had "spent a long, long time thinking how to describe this organisation" but he "wouldn't change a single word of it. Artelia replied with three options including that fully cassette-fixed cladding would save 293,368. /F2 17 0 R The fact that all the tenants can become members amounts to little as all they can do is elect some of the Board. endobj The Grenfell Tower Fire as a Breach of the Right to Life. Tenant Management Organisations such as KCTMO are founded when residents create a corporate body, which appoints a management committee to run the body, funded by management fees paid by the Council under the agreement. The Kensington and Chelsea Tenant Management Organisation was established on 1 April 1996, when it assumed management of 9,760 properties from the council. WebProvide full-time tenant management; Schedule and oversee property repair and maintenance; Manage collection of all rent and enforce penalties for late payments; Notify me of follow-up comments by email. So the Council must act to close down the fake TMO and take responsibility directly, both for what happened and what should happen next. Fire notice in Adair Tower, featuring the stay put policy. What is the actual purpose of this TMOs? /Xi5 14 0 R In an email to the KCTMO on March 20 2017, Mr Chapman said: Having seen these pipes numerous times, I am seriously concerned about how I will get out of the building alive in the event of a fire with this added risk., He added: At the 22nd floor it is a very long way down from the window in the event that after 30 minutes of fire our house is engulfed., In a second email three days later, Mr Chapman said: The potential risk to life and our common assets is without doubt very high given that this GAS MAIN is installed through our communal fire escape.. The council and its tenant management organisation will give evidence in coming weeks. People need action to restore normal conditions on the estate and rebuild trust. 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