The Local Government Association (LGA) has distanced itself from guidance hosted on its website that has been criticised in the wake of the Grenfell Tower fire.
According to the fire safety in purpose built blocks of flats guidance, it is ‘usually unrealistic’ to expect council landlords to ‘have in place special arrangements such as personal emergency evacuation plans’ for occupants of a ‘general needs block of flats’ like Grenfell.
After the inquests following the 2009 Lakanal House fire - which before Grenfell was regarded as the most serious fire in a residential building in London for decades - former communities secretary Eric Pickles said the Government was ‘considering with the LGA whether the guide might need to be revised’.
However, the guide was neither revised nor withdrawn before the Grenfell fire.
An LGA spokesperson said: ‘It is not an expression of the LGA’s view on what fire safety standards should be.
'The LGA has raised the need for an updated version of this guide with the Government, which is expected to publish a new guide later this year and at whose request we continue to host the existing version.’
A government spokesperson said: 'Keeping the public safe is our top priority and we are determined to do all we can to ensure [we] prevent devastating tragedies like the Grenfell Tower fire or Lakanal House fire.
'We are working on updating existing fire safety guidance, including the fire safety in purpose built blocks of flats guide which we aim to publish later this year.'
