Internal emails revealing how the leadership of the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea knew they could not cope in the immediate aftermath of the Grenfell Tower fire have been released under the Freedom of Information Act.

Nick Paget-Brown, who later resigned as council leader, complained about a “complete media shitstorm” and another email, sent internally between councillors was titled “Who is in charge?”, according to Channel 4 News, which obtained the correspondence.

In it Paget-Brown said that the council “would not be able to handle the scale of this tragedy alone”.



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The correspondence also shows how the council struggled to communicate with residents in the area around the tower, with an unidentified individual reporting to Paget-Brown comparing the community to “gangs” and admitting they didn’t understand the area.

Describing the local people, the report to the leader said: “There are language problems, lack of education and understanding how anything works.”



According to Channel 4 News, the email added: “These are separate local communities … Rather like gangs, they don’t go into another territory, and we need to understand the makeup of the area.”



The revelations represent fresh evidence of the cultural and political gulf between the council and the community in the north of the borough, which survivors of the fire have complained of in the 12 months since the fire that claimed 72 lives. They come just days before the one year anniversary.

In one email, Paget-Brown said: “There are some disgusting people around who are keen to politicise a tragedy. I am trying to avoid giving them satisfaction.”

The council leader was also advised to “take the building down as soon as possible because otherwise it will just become a memorial, and with carnival this summer it does not bode well”.



Paget-Brown was critical of media coverage of the council’s response referring to how “Jon Snow [Channel 4 News presenter] made the awful comment about social cleansing and said to me on air that, now the tower has gone will we be building housing for rich people?”

Referring to a series of other media interviews he said: “I felt that the borough’s reputation had been so sufficiently trashed that I could do little further harm.”

“The media distortion of what the council is doing is atrocious,” another email said.

Paget-Brown, then leader of the Conservative-controlled borough which owned Grenfell Tower, expressed concern about “exhausted staff”.

“Hardworking officers from this council and many others are doing their best to mitigate the consequences of this unparallelled tragedy,” he wrote. “Their contribution has been dismissed by the media and we are seeking to address this.”

The emails also show he was threatened by members of the public.

“Go to the top of Grenfell Tower and throw yourself off,” one said. “I hope you get burnt to death by your social tenants ... you and your council deserve it.”

Another email called him an “oily little scumbag”, adding: “I wonder how you can sleep at night ... ?”



In response, the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea referred to its opening statement to the public inquiry it made on Wednesday. “The unprecedented nature and scale of the fire posed an extraordinary challenge for any local authority,” it said.

“It would be wrong to think that the Council did not care about those affected or did not attempt to help them; it did. Over 340 Council staff were mobilised in the response on 14 June.”