Kensington and Chelsea council has worsened the trauma of many Grenfell survivors by taking far too long to rehouse them through a string of errors, according to a community aid association that has helped many families.

The North Kensington Law Centre says the council’s performance on rehousing had “fallen way short” of what should be expected. The centre has been working with the local community since 1970 and has advised about 250 households affected by Grenfell.

In a report published before Thursday’s anniversary of the fire that killed 72 people, the law centre says delays in rehousing have caused mental distress and the council’s approach has often been chaotic and obstructive.

Alex Diner, a policy officer for the law centre, said the council and government had broken their promise to rehouse families within a year of the disaster and needed to set a new deadline.

“This is of significance not just because most survivors have been forced to wait too long to be rehoused and because pledges have again been broken, but also because the manner in which residents have been rehoused and the associated delays have added to their suffering,” he said.

“Too many have been placed under undue pressure to accept housing offers and been given incorrect information by frontline [council] staff. This shatters survivors’ confidence and undermines what little trust was already there.”

While 90% of the 209 households requiring rehousing have accepted permanent accommodation, just 82 have moved. Since Easter just 16 households have moved, an average of under two per week.

The law centre report says the delays owe partly to the condition of some of the housing provided, with damp, disrepair and access issues having to be sorted before people could move in.



It says the council has spent £235m on securing 307 properties to help rehouse people, but “the fact that so much of this housing stock has lay empty for up to six months as it is being made habitable is illustrative of the fact that many of these purchases were not suitable”.

It says some of the other properties will never be suitable and there is a need for the council to spend more of its reserves to acquire better options.

The most trenchant criticism in the report concerns the council’s dealings with residents, saying they have too often been “treated with a business-as-usual attitude”. It adds: “A tick-box approach to assessing needs in these exceptional circumstances will not result in a proper understanding of those needs.”

The report also condemns the council’s communications, saying these remain substandard, both within the authority and to residents. “It should not be incumbent on a community law centre, limited as its resources are, to be forced to spend a significant proportion of its energies explaining to the local authority the basic tenets of its own policies,” it says.

With significant numbers of local people suffering post-traumatic stress disorder and other mental health issues following the fire, the cumulative impact of all the errors is likely to be significant, the report says.

“The council’s interaction with residents in the period after the fire had the capacity to alleviate some of the trauma of survivors, but instead too often only exacerbated it. In the last 12 months the council has failed to fully grasp this reality and has let down survivors as a result.”

The council said the rehousing task had been complicated in part because an original 138 households had now split into 203 needing to be rehoused.

Elizabeth Campbell, the leader of the council, said: “It has been a hugely complex challenge, but 90% of families have accepted an offer of a permanent home and 90% of these homes are ready to move into.

“I have seen and heard the personal stories bravely told in the first two weeks of the public inquiry, every day. The families involved are not statistics that need to be moved around a balance sheet. So, we will no longer set deadlines. They are not required. What is required is understanding, support and above all a willingness to do everything we can to help. No matter how large or small the task.”