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The new head of the London fire ­brigade today revealed he had apologised to bereaved victims of the Grenfell Tower disaster as he sought to regain their trust.

Andy Roe also issued a plea to residents of the capital’s 7,000 high-rise blocks to set aside any post-Grenfell doubts and continue to follow firefighters’ advice in the event of a blaze.

He was appointed by Mayor Sadiq Khan to speed the “transformation” of a brigade heavily criticised by the fire watchdog for being too slow to address the failures of Grenfell, and met members of the Grenfell Next of Kin group this week.

In his first interview since starting the job on January 1, Mr Roe, 45, told the Standard: “I never ever want to be in the situation again where I have to sit across the table from so many bereaved families. I offered an apology. I felt that some of our institutional shortcomings meant we had let our own people down, who were so brave that night.”

He said he was committed to meeting everyone affected by Grenfell, which claimed 72 lives.

He said: “I can’t bring their families back. I will never be able to understand nor make better their pain. The best I can do is show that we have listened, that they are respected, that I understand them and we are here to serve them and protect them and listen to what they say. If anyone knows something about that fire and knows what needs to change, it is those people. We lost their trust.”

It was Mr Roe who, 18 minutes after arriving on scene at Grenfell on the night of the disaster in June 2017 abandoned the “stay put” advice being given to residents and ordered 999 call-­handlers to tell them to try to escape.

The Grenfell Tower inquiry has said more lives could have been saved if “stay put” had been rescinded sooner by commanders already on the ground.

Mr Roe said: “When my officers either say ‘stay put’ or ‘get out’, trust us and listen — that is an absolute priority to me. I do accept that if you live in a high rise in London, because of Grenfell, you may not trust that advice at the moment. But I could not put it more clearly: stay put is still the best advice for the vast majority of high-rise residents."