Grenfell Tower fire: Traumatised survivors offered temporary accommodation in high-rise flats

Survivors of the Grenfell Tower fire are reportedly concerned about being offered temporary accommodation in high-rise tower blocks.

Friends and relatives of survivors who lived in the burned out tower said Kensington and Chelsea council had offered up high-rise hotels as temporary accommodation which, consumed with memories of the traumatising blaze, they were not comfortable living in.

Lisa Murray, whose sister and her family “lost everything” after they fled from the block when the blaze started in the early hours of Wednesday morning, said they had been offered to be put up in a hotel, but that when they got there they saw it was a tower block.

She posted a photograph of the tower block hotel on Facebook, accompanied by the words: “The council said they would put my sister and her family in a hotel, sounds lovely… They get there and it's in a tower block.

"Are the council taking the p**s! They just escaped the worst tower block fire in London and the council wanna [sic] put them in a tower block! Use your brain RBKC (Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea).”

Nadia Isla, a local resident, meanwhile said a man who escaped the fire was offered a room in a hotel with his children but refused to go there because they were too frightened to enter a tall building.

She told Mail Online: “The survivors are not watching the news. They don't want to see their houses burning. They don't want to see it so they don't know that you are doing all this kind stuff.

“They wanted to put him in a building which is a high-rise building. He freaked out because he doesn't want to put his children in a high-rise building - would you?

“They have been trying to re-house them in the building but they [the survivors] do not want to go in it. Do you blame them? He freaked out. He said he does not want to put my children in that building.”

When asked whether people requiring emergency housing were being put in tower blocks, a spokesperson from the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea (RBKC) said: "No. People are being temporarily housed in hotel accommodation in or close to the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea."

It comes as police confirmed 79 people are either dead or missing and presumed dead, with the number expected to increase further.

Metropolitan Police Commander Stuart Cundy said five people had been formally identified and the rest of those missing following the blaze were “sadly” presumed dead.

He added that the “awful reality” was that due to the intensity of the fire and the devastation it caused, it may not be possible to identify all the victims.