‘Very rude’ Grenfell Tower residents complained about need for renovations before fire, housing official says

Consultation events descended into ‘screaming matches’ despite council’s best efforts, inquiry hears

Seventy-two residents died in Grenfell Tower during the deadly fire in 2017 (PA)

Discussions over the refurbishment of Grenfell Tower were sabotaged by a handful of angry and disruptive residents, the inquiry has heard.

The probe into the catastrophic fire which killed 72 people in June 2017 heard evidence on Monday from the Kensington & Chelsea Tenant Management Organisation (KCTMO), which runs all the council housing in the borough.

Siobhan Rumble, who was KCTMO’s area housing manager for the estate Grenfell Tower is on, said she had tried to lead extensive consultation with the tower’s residents about plans to revamp the building, including adding the infamous cladding which led to the deadly blaze.

However, although most of those living in Grenfell Tower were happy with the plans, meetings to discuss the proposals often descended into shouting matches.

“I think, initially, the majority of residents were quite happy that there was going to be a lot of money spent on the tower. It was well-needed,” Ms Rumble said.

"But unfortunately there was just literally a handful of residents that had an issue from before my time who, no matter what you done, they were just ... you couldn’t have an evening meeting.

"There’d be shouting and screaming in the meetings. We’d have to stop the meetings.”

One person in particular, Edward Daffarn – who lived on the 16^th floor and wrote the blog post which infamously predicted a deadly fire months before it happened – was “very challenging” and “very rude” to deal with, the KCTMO official said.

Mr Daffarn told the inquiry last week that, while meetings "may have been challenging" and "slightly unpleasant" for the KCTMO, he did not feel they were "disruptive".

Minutes of a KCTMO programme board meeting in November 2013, which were referred to at Monday’s hearing, showed that it was agreed "to hold no more public meetings because of the stand being made by the Grenfell Tower leaseholder group".

Ms Rumble said she guessed this happened after Mr Daffarn attended a meeting and had to be asked to leave because of his behaviour.

She said: "One of Mr Daffarn’s favourite sayings was ‘This is a slum, we’re living in a slum, you’re doing nothing’. And we were there, actually, holding a consultation meeting, telling them how much money we were spending on the tower, wanting their involvement."

She said his behaviour "wasn’t constructive" and made other people feel uncomfortable.

She said: "The majority of people on the estate were lovely, and that’s why we still done our job. We were happy working at Lancaster West because the majority of people were good, nice people."

The inquiry has previously heard from Grenfell Tower Leaseholders’ Association (GTLA) founder Shahid Ahmed, who labelled meetings and newsletters about the tower’s refurbishment "a PR exercise" and claimed he was "deliberately excluded from the consultation process".

An email from July 2012, from a GTLA vice chairman to Ms Rumble, claimed that it was "always very difficult" for the group to get a "straightforward, simple answer from the KCTMO".

But Ms Rumble insisted "it was a case of you’re damned if you do and you’re damned if you don’t”.

Finishing her evidence, Ms Rumble said: "From the inquiry I just hope, even without the summing up at the end of all of this inquiry, we’re all going to learn something from it and just hope that nothing like this ever happens again."