The organisation that managed Grenfell Tower received warnings about a series of fire safety failures months before the blaze, unpublished documents have revealed, according to ITV.

In the immediate aftermath of the fire, residents said they had been warning the Kensington and Chelsea Tenant Management Organisation (KCTMO), which managed the building, about fire safety concerns for years.

Additionally, it has now emerged that both the fire service and an independent fire risk assessor had repeatedly flagged serious problems before the blaze on 14 June 2017, which killed 72 people.

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The independent assessor’s warnings were issued in June 2016 and recommended action on more than 40 “high-risk” issues within two to three weeks, according to documents seen by ITV.



In October, the assessor wrote to KCTMO and asked why action had not been taken on more than 20 issues identified in the June report.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest The Labour MP David Lammy has called on the police to take action. Photograph: Graeme Robertson/The Guardian

A fire deficiency notice from the then London fire and emergency planning authority was served in November 2016, identifying multiple failures at Grenfell that needed action from KCTMO by May 2017, one month before the fire. This was accompanied by a separate independent fire risk assessment.

The warnings highlighted problems that may have affected the spread of smoke throughout the tower, which stopped residents from getting out and firefighters from getting in.

The two fire safety audits found there were poorly fitted or damaged fire doors and fire doors that did not self-close. Questions were also raised about how a refurbishment had affected the building’s smoke ventilation system and the operation of the firefighter’s lift controls.

Fire doors are crucial in containing smoke during a fire and would have been indispensable as the building’s combustible outer cladding hastened the spread of the blaze.

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David Lammy, the Labour MP for Tottenham, said the new evidence suggested people were “culpable” for the tragedy.

He claimed that if action had been taken on the warnings, lives might have been saved, and called on the police to act on the new evidence.

Aldo Diana, a firefighter who saved nine people at Grenfell, many of whom were unconscious as a result of smoke inhalation, said he was surprised by the amount of smoke he encountered going up the building.



“Basically you couldn’t see your hand in front of your face,” he told ITV. “It was just thick black smoke. You didn’t see anybody else you literally had to bump into them. It was just hot, humid and thick black smoke.

“Not having correct fire doors is important. Once the smoke starts seeping through to other places, it makes it difficult and dangerous for everybody on that floor, and it shouldn’t really go into the stairwell unless there was a breach or ill-fitted doors or something of that nature.

“So I was quite surprised by the amount of smoke from the fourth floor, fifth floor, all the way up to the top.”

KCTMO, which manages Kensington and Chelsea’s housing stock, ceased to exist following the fire after admitting it could no longer guarantee that it could “fulfil its obligations”.

A Kensington and Chelsea council spokesperson said: “This will be a matter for the public inquiry, and to comment further could risk prejudicing the ongoing police investigation. We do not want to do or say anything that could obstruct the course of justice, because justice is what our residents want the most.



“Our first thoughts and our last thoughts will always be with those that lost their lives in the Grenfell tragedy. We have been clear that we want the whole unvarnished truth and we will do all we can to assist, no matter what the consequences are for the council.”