Grenfell Tower Inquiry: Former resident who raised safety concerns gives evidence

21 April 2021, 21:49 | Updated: 21 April 2021, 21:51

By Sam Sholli

The Grenfell Tower Inquiry today heard from a former resident who raised safety concerns on his blog prior to the deadly fire.

Edward Daffarn managed to escape from the 16th floor of the tower on June 14, 2017, eight months after writing on his blog about the risk of a "serious fire in a tower block".

The 57-year-old used his Grenfell Action blog to raise concerns about how residents were treated by the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea (RBKC) and its tenant management organisation (TMO).

In a blogpost published in November 2016, he wrote: "Unfortunately, the Grenfell Action Group have reached the conclusion that only an incident that results in serious loss of life of KCTMO residents will allow the external scrutiny to occur that will shine a light on the practices that characterise the malign governance of this non-functioning organisation."

Explaining the current stage the inquiry is at, LBC correspondent Rachael Venables said: "It's all about looking at the relationship between the residents...and the building's management before the fire.

"So we're hearing a lot about the TMO who were effectively the landlords...[and] also the council and others as well."

She said that the inquiry is at present "trying to understand why residents' complaints, concerns [and] even cries for help went ignored for so many years before this tragedy".

Speaking about the concerns of Grenfell Tower residents before the fire, Mr Daffarn told the inquiry: "Part of the function with the blog was to record what was happening to our community.

"We didn't feel that we had the power to change what was happening to our community. But we weren't going to just let it happen."