Housing chiefs are launching a charm offensive to reassure residents in Bristol’s high-rise council blocks after fire evacuation plans were branded a “recipe for disaster”. Tenants fear that new national guidance to get everyone out at the same time in an emergency will cause a stampede or someone tripping over and blocking the way, especially in towers with just one staircase.
Last week Bristol City Council’s cabinet approved £97million of fire safety measures, of which almost half will be spent removing and replacing dangerous “expanded polystyrene” cladding (EPS), along with £32.7million to install sprinklers in all 62 blocks six storeys or higher by 2028. About £8.7million will pay for simultaneous evacuation alarms in individual flats over the next 12 months as an interim measure to replace the existing 24/7 “waking watches” if the cladding work is not scheduled within the next year.
It follows the fatal fire at Twinnell House, Easton, in September and a second serious blaze a month later at Eccleston House in Barton Hill, with flammable EPS cladding at the latter helping to spread the flames. But residents are worried that the evacuation plans have not been properly thought through and also say there will be resistance to sprinklers.
