£93m fire safety bill for Birmingham following Grenfell

Bosses criticised the government for a lack of financial support and warned tenants that the usual maintenance programme for replacing things such as kitchens, bathrooms and rooftops had been severely impacted for the time-being.

Last year the authority committed to a £31m investment to fit out all of its 213 tower blocks with sprinklers, despite an unsuccessful government bid.

Now it has emerged that further national safety guidance could result in costs of around £34m to replace fire doors and frames as well as more than £28m to replace window infill panels.

A total of 72 people were killed when the Kensington-based block caught fire in June 2017.

As findings from the public inquiry into the disaster emerged, cabinet bosses in Birmingham discussed their latest annual report outlining the second city’s response to the incident.

Housing and neighbourhoods chief Councillor Sharon Thompson stated that Birmingham had been very ‘proactive’ in addressing fire safety despite the fact the city had been hit harder than others financially.

She said: “Birmingham has 10 per cent of the country’s local authority high-rise blocks, so that means when this fire took place it was a huge significant pressure that was put on to us as well as the rest of the country, but not one that other local authorities had to deal with in the same way that we did because of the level of high rise blocks – 213 to be exact.

“We wanted to take a proactive approach to this. Grenfell fire was the biggest housing tragedy to take place in my lifetime, we would not want something similar to happen in Birmingham.

“The number one priority for us was fire safety. We’ve actually committed to investing a staggering £93m into fire safety for our tower blocks.

“It has to be said no funding has come from the government towards this, we have repeatedly asked, we have written to the government with other local authorities across the West Midlands, other core cities, Greater London authority, everybody has been lobbying because this is seen as something that is important to the country to residents that live in tower blocks.

Councillor Thompson added: “We are pleased we have been able to invest this but it means other things have been put on the back-burner in terms of people having kitchens done, bathrooms, things that tenants have been asking for. We will continue to press the government.”