News / Barton House
Inquiry into how tower block of council flats was evacuated
An inquiry will explore how a tower block of council flats was evacuated after fears the building could collapse.
Around 400 tenants living in Barton House were told to leave their homes in November 2023 but several questions remain.
To answer some of these questions, Bristol City Council is hiring a consultant to carry out a “lessons learned review” into the evacuation.
Tenants were told the building was safe in February 2024 and moved back into their homes after surveys assuaged fears about the condition of the block in Barton Hill.
The review is expected to cost around £45,000, according to the response to a recent freedom of information request according to a brief update on the upcoming inquiry given to councillors on the housing policy committee.
Green councillor Barry Parsons, chair of the housing committee, said: “The council has appointed an organisation to conduct a review into the Barton House evacuation, which took place in November 2023.
“More details of that, including the company’s name, will be shared once the contract has been signed.
“The scope of the investigation hasn’t been set yet. It’ll be set by those consultants working with residents in particular, and other stakeholders including officers.
“We want to make sure that this process is transparent and driven by residents.
“They will have the ability to request documents for whatever’s in scope of the investigation. It’s really important that they have that freedom.”
The 15-storey Barton House was built in 1958 and contains 98 flats – photo: Martin Booth
Council staff will not tell the consultants what lines of inquiry they should take. Instead this will be informed from discussing the inquiry with tenants of Barton House.
This will also affect how long the inquiry will last, with one rough estimate of a finish date before the end of 2025.
One key question that could be explored is when council staff and councillors first learned of the structural problems at Barton House, and how long the delay was before taking action.
There are claims that a council director was told in July 2022 of the risk of collapse, and that cabinet members became aware of problems in September 2023, two months before the evacuation.
The government raised safety concerns about buildings like Barton House in 2017, writing to councils with large-panel system tower blocks.
Then the council commissioned a report to investigate these concerns in 2020. It is still unclear why this took three years to do.
The results of the report were then published in 2022, flagging safety issues but not suggesting evacuation.
Another question is whether the absence of the former mayor Marvin Rees, who was 4,000 miles away in Rwanda attending a local government conference at the time, affected the decision to evacuate the tower block or how the evacuation was handled.
Earlier this year, it was revealed that the mayor’s emails appear to have been deleted after he left office, which will hamper efforts to learn more about the decision-making process.
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Read more: Rees in Rwanda: ‘I’m leading’
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There are also lingering questions over how information about the evacuation was first communicated, with journalists becoming aware of the plans before residents and councillors were told.
The pay package of the former director of housing and landlord services, who left the council three months after the evacuation, has also come under questioning.
Speaking to the housing committee, Dan Ackroyd, a democracy activist, said: “The inquiry needs to be set up properly. Paying somebody, who has just monumentally mucked up their job, a bonus of £64,000 to go away, isn’t a good look.”
Around 400 tenants living in Barton House were told to leave their homes in November 2023 but several questions remain – photo: Martin Booth
Separately, tenants of the tower block could soon get rehoused more quickly.
The council consulted the public about changing how people on the waiting list for social housing are put into four bands of priority.
One likely change will be bumping tenants of blocks like Barton House, who have had to leave their homes after an emergency, up one band.
This would mean that people in band two would move up to band one, and band three into band two, and so on.
People in band one are given a new home much more quickly than the other bands.
The changes were welcomed by Acorn, the community union, as a victory in their campaign to rehouse tenants.
However, people not in band one will still wait many months before getting a new home.
Main photo: Martin Booth
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