Lambeth earmarks £1.65m to tackle fire safety risks in tower blocks (From Streatham Guardian)

Lambeth earmarks £1.65m to tackle fire safety risks in tower blocks

6:20am Monday 15th March 2010 in News By Matt Watts

The bill for urgent work to protect council housing blocks from fire risks could rise above £1.65m.

Lambeth Council is carrying out fire inspections on all its blocks, after it emerged last year the authority had fire safety certificates for just two of its 112 such buildings.

Serious concerns over the safety of blocks were raised last year in the wake of a fire in the 12-storey Larkanal House in Camberwell last summer, which killed six people.

The assessments are due to be finished by the end of March, when their full results will be published.

Lambeth Living, the company managing Lambeth's housing stock, said last month none of its tower blocks had received an overall classification of being high risk.

Lambeth's cabinet member for housing, Councillor Lib Peck, said work completed to date indicated £1.65m was required to address fire risk issues arising from the inspections, but said the figure might increase once the full assessments had been completed.

She said: "The health and safety of our residents is something we take very seriously and we will be prioritising these works."

The funding for the works is to come from the council's £30m capital pot, with emergency works to come from its current housing health and safety budget.