A door to one of the 185 flats in the council-owned Michael Cliffe House

• AS one of the residents of Michael Cliffe House waiting for improved fire doors, I was stunned to read Councillor Diarmaid Ward’s claim that residents’ safety is the council’s “top priority”, (High-rise tenants still waiting for fire doors, April 20).

I am chairman of the residents’ association and heard many promises after the Grenfell Tower disaster, but the council has done absolutely nothing to address the block’s many fire safety issues.

Our communal fire doors are as old as the block and do not meet modern fire-safety standards, and the doors to our flats are still not self-closing despite a replacement project that has been repeatedly postponed for the last three years and which Grenfell seems to have done nothing to accelerate.

For Cllr Ward to point out that the block is in the lowest-risk category is like saying that we’ll be all right as long as we don’t have a fire.

Compartmentalisation is a key element to fire safety and one of Grenfell’s most significant failings, yet we still don’t have doors that would contain fire effectively.

If there was a fire in a flat and the door was left open it would spread throughout the block. Every day spent fussing over details is another day when this might happen.

RICHARD LARCOMBE
Chairman, Finsbury Estate Tenants’ and Residents’ Association