Mandy Ryan at the Chalcots Estate

EVACUATED council tenants are sleeping on blow-up airbeds in the hall of the Swiss Cottage Leisure Centre for a third night with the council still struggling to find hotels for everybody.

Around 200 people are understood to still be inside the tower blocks of the Chalcots Estate, despite being told on Friday evening that all residents must leave on urgent fire safety grounds.

Of this number, around 20 are saying they do not want to leave under any circumstances, with the rest refusing to go until more comfortable arrangements than airbeds or run down hotels are provided.

Some residents were found places to stay but have returned to the rest centre set up in the leisure centre complaining that the accommodation was unsuitable, dirty or too far away. The search of temporary accommodation has led council staff and volunteers to offer places, in some cases, in the outer boroughs and beyond.

Mandy Ryan, who lives on the 22nd floor of the Dorney tower, came back to Chalcots after being “shocked and devastated” by the temporary provision that is being provided. She sent the New Journal a video of the rooms she had been offered in Haringey, insisting that they had been put somewhere likely to be more unsafe than the Chalcots because of its broken windows, faulty wiring and “filthy” conditions.

Today, she was given a new offer and has met personally with Camden Council’s leader Councillor Georgia Gould.

Frustration, however, remains for dozens more residents as the unprecedented operation to move 4,000 from their homes continues. People are being allowed to revisit their flats for no more than 30 minutes and are being monitored by security guards.

The evacuation was ordered after a fire inspection in the wake of the Grenfell fire tragedy, which killed 79 people. Cladding, containing a plastic similar to the material used at Grenfell, was already down to be removed, but Camden said it had been told by the inspectors that the situation had been made critical by a series of internal problems at the towers, including exposed gas pipes and ineffective fire doors. Questions are already mounting as to how these have been missed in recent fire assessments and residents in other estates asking whether their blocks need similar work.

At the rest centre today (Sunday), Paula Hill and her young son told the New Journal that they were waiting to be found permanent accommodation.

She refused to leave her home on Friday and last night stayed with friends. “The whole thing has been dreadful,” she said. “I was so angry yesterday. It was so badly managed. There’s loads of people in there, so they look like they are doing something, but nobody has any information. Today is a bit better.”

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Another day facing the wrath of tenants – and the camera – crews for new council leader Georgia Gould

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Cllr Gould ordered the evacuation at the end of Friday, leaving people scrambling for possessions and pets through the night. While the leader has been visible on the ground throughout the weekend and Camden has issued regular web updates, evacuated residents have complained about poor communications about what expenses they were entitled to and whether they still had to pay rent on flats they could be locked out of for up to four weeks. Some were unaware that they could claim payments of £100 for food.

Wafa Saideyeh, her 74-year-old mother and her brother were told there was no room for them at the sports centre on Friday evening and were told to join the wait for housing and given a queuing ticket with a number in the low-600s.

“We came back on Saturday evening and found out they were giving out £100 vouchers, if we didn’t come back ourselves we wouldn’t have known. We took that and that helped,” she said. “Earlier today, a lady that lived next door phoned and they had got rid of the number and they are giving out new numbers, so we came and found there was a new registration system.”

She said she felt they had been treated “like animals” when they were told to leave, adding: “I understand it’s confusing, but talk to us like a human being. They sent us away saying I don’t want you around here, we’ll call you if we have any updates. I get that everything is confusing, but talk to me like I’m a human being, don’t talk to me like I’m an animal.”

The Taplow tower behind the Swiss Cottage Leisure Centre

Another woman was facing a third night sleeping on air beds on the floor of the Swiss Cottage sports centre with her five children, as the council try to find accommodation to house the family together.

Another man in the queue said there had been a natural envy for residents who were watching some tenants being put up in well-equipped hotels near to the Chalcots estate, while others were being sent to run down rooms far away from their home community, a point which was leading to an extra layer of irritation.

Camden, however, said not everybody on the airbeds had been their every night. A makeshift dormitory set up at the Camden Centre in King’s Cross had now been closed with more hotels becoming available across London following the weekend rush. The Town Hall has already spent more than half a millon pounds on hotels, while it has also agreed to cover people who booked hotels privately, as long as their stays did not go over a £200-per-night cap, ruling out nights in some of Camden’s famously upmarket choices.

Cllr Gould has faced both praise and criticism, with Labour group colleagues hailing her decision to front out the evacuation on the ground and embarking on a safety-first evacuation despite an inevitable backlash among tenants.

Others have questioned the timing, warning that Camden’s calm and firm statements on Thursday about removing cladding at the tower had been so quickly replaced with messages described by some critics as “panic”.

Cllr Gould said this evening: “Our focus is on making residents as comfortable as possible, and we’re working as fast as we can to move residents through the rest centre and into hotels and other suitable accommodation. Where residents would like to book their own hotel rooms, we’ll cover the cost of up to £200 per room per night, we just need residents to give us a receipt. We’ll also be making brand new flats we’ve built at Maiden Lane available for evacuated families for a temporary period.”

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