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Thousands more families are facing evacuation in the wake of the Grenfell Tower disaster after their flats failed emergency safety tests.

At least 34 council-owned high rise blocks in 17 local authorities have been found to have combustible cladding similar to that used in Grenfell Tower , the Government has revealed.

Blocks in Portsmouth, Manchester and Plymouth as well as Camden, Brent and Hounslow in London have buildings that failed tests.

Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn has urged Theresa May to convene the Government’s emergency Cobra committee. He said: “This is now a nationwide threat – and the Prime Minister needs to get a grip and lead a national response.”

(Image: Rex Features) (Image: EPA)

Birmingham city council leader John Clancy said: “It’s a national emergency. As each day has gone by there seems to be less clarity. There is a collective national trauma at the moment and people up and down the country go to bed afraid.”

His warning came after Camden council in North London ordered a mass evacuation of 650 flats with less than an hour’s notice on Friday night.

Now around 4,000 residents are facing weeks in temporary accommodation after being moved from four tower blocks with cladding similar to Grenfell Tower, where 79 are presumed dead after the horrific fire.

They were moved from the Chalcots Estate where a major refurbishment scheme was overseen by Rydon, the construction company involved in the refit of Grenfell Tower.

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Some families bedded down for the night at a nearby leisure centre, others moved into hotels but more than 80 others refused to leave.

A woman, aged 57, who has a severe lung condition, said: “Some days I cannot walk to the door, never mind the local sports centre. We’re not refusing to leave, it’s not viable unless the council finds a feasible solution.”

She and her daughters, aged 26 and 30, had been offered a room at a Premier Inn elsewhere in the capital.

She said: “That’s one room for three adults, two cats and three hamsters. I have a hospital appointment on Monday. I don’t want to move far.” Rose Turner, 27, who has a nine-week-old baby son, refused to spend the night at the leisure centre. She said: “They want me to put my baby on an airbed, but he sleeps with me.

“It looked like world war three down there. I was told to get my belongings and take my son. We’re being treated like animals.”

Earlier, an angry 72-year-old resident confronted Camden council leader Georgia Gould outside the Swiss Cottage leisure centre where some evacuated residents spent the night. She was told she could not be rehoused in temporary accommodation because she owned a dog.

She said: “I suffer from emphysema and now they are telling they can’t rehouse me because I have a dog. What I am supposed to be do with my dog, put it down?”

(Image: Newcastle Chronicle) (Image: Getty)

Another resident, Roger Evans, 51, said: “As far as I am concerned, ­nothing in that building has changed in the last few days, weeks, months or years. It was perfectly safe before, despite what they are saying now – I believe I am safe in there.”

HGV driver Steve Perolli, 49, who stayed in his fourth-floor flat, with his partner Kerry and his two grown-up stepdaughters, said he was asked to leave again at 3am.

He said: “There were people literally running out, for what? It was fine 72 hours ago, it was fine two weeks ago, it was fine when they finished the cladding.”

Camden Council said it had spent £500,000 on hotel rooms for residents and has offered to reimburse those who have paid for their own temporary accommodation.

Ms Gould said it would “become a matter for the fire service” if residents stayed in their homes. She said: “Emotions were ­really high and some people, even with all the fire advice, decided to stay.”

Leader's Labour heritage

(Image: PA)

Georgia Gould took over as the Labour leader of Camden Council in May this year.

Now 31, she became a councillor for the London borough at the age of 24.

She is the author of a 2015 book called Wasted: How Misunderstanding Young Britain Threatens Our Future.

Ms Gould grew up in Camden to Labour-supporting parents.

Her father Philip Gould has been hailed as the architect of New Labour having worked as a strategy and polling advisor to the Labour Party between 1987 and 2005.

Her mother is Gail Rebuck, chair of publishing house Penguin Random House UK and a Labour peer.