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We can confirm Bristol City Council has said it will spend £22.3m on fire safety in its tower blocks. This is very welcome!
Make no mistake, this commitment is a direct result of ACORN and residents getting organised and refusing to take no for an answer.
Here's how:
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2/16
At about 2am on September 25th, fire broke out on the 16th (top) floor of council block Twinnell House in Easton. About 90 residents were evacuated.
Abdul Jabar Oryakhel died trying to escape the fire. He was seeking asylum from Afghanistan and was a married father of seven.
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3/16
Residents reported smoke alarms in Twinnell House hadn't been working properly & they'd been woken by neighbours and police knocking doors.
The council announced the fire was started by an electric bike & fire doors and alarms 'worked as expected'.
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4/16
ACORN started doorknocking and talking to residents and quickly found that they were feeling angry & frightened. We spoke with Ahmed who'd been to several meetings with the council but felt it seemed like a 'tick-box exercise', and the council was evading responsibility.
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5/16
Many residents joined ACORN and started getting organised. We wrote our demands and formed the Bristol Towers United: Fire Safety Now! campaign.
Our members were not prepared to sit around waiting for another Grenfell!
We invited the mayor to an accountability meeting.
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7/16
The mayor didn't bother to respond to our invitation to the accountability meeting, let alone attend.
We heard residents recall fleeing the fire in fear, now terrified to return to Twinnell House.
There was anger for historic tower block neglect and now feeling ignored.
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8/16
On the 20th of October, there was ANOTHER serious fire in a Bristol block, this time Eccleston House in Barton Hill.
We ramped up the campaign, pushing our demands on social media and sharing voices of concerned residents campaigning for safety.
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9/16
"I joined ACORN because I felt like we weren't safe."
Our member Selma is a resident of Twinnell House and a leading voice in our campaign for tower block fire safety: Bristol Towers United: Fire Safety Now!
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10/16
Videos by
@JoelChima6
with graphic by
@arvindicate
Pics in tweets 1, 5, 7, 12 and 14 by
@sheph150
“It’s made me think, what would I do, if I was in the situation where in the middle of the night, a fire occurred?”
Since recent fires in Twinnell House and Eccleston House, Bristol’s tower block residents are living in fear of another disaster occurring.
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11/16
Our member Selma was a direct neighbour of Abdul who died in the Twinnell House fire. She escaped barefoot with her young son, but now faced another nightmare! The council was trying to force her back to Twinnell House despite her & her son's trauma.
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@BristolCouncil
protect our member Selma and her son!
On the night of the fire in Twinnell House in September, our member Selma Musse escaped her flat barefoot with her six-year-old autistic son. Her neighbour Abdul lost his life that night.
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12/16
We were not going to accept our member getting treated so appallingly; she'd been through so much already!
On Nov 25th we took action at City Hall in defence of Selma. The door was locked against us so we papered it with Justice for Selma posters & made our feelings known.
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13/16
By chance, just after our action, we ran into the mayor and he took our demands! We demanded Selma be given appropriate temporary accommodation, and her mistreatment be immediately investigated.
Within hours a new flat was found and Selma moved in that night. Victory!
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14/16
The next day we held a vigil at Twinnell House to mark 2 months since the fire and death of Abdul.
We announced the council was starting to take tower block fire safety seriously, and it seemed our demands were close to being met.
It should never have come to this!
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15/16
This is a huge win for our tower block residents and ACORN.
Waking watches are now active in 38 Bristol blocks- 27 more than before. Fire risk assessments were published as we demanded, & a commitment to fit sprinklers into every block has been made!
🧯 ADDITIONAL FIRE SAFETY MEASURES
Cabinet confirms the decision made in November to provide £22.3 million worth of resources to expand fire safety measures across
@BristolCouncil
owned tower blocks:
#DeliveringForBristol
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16/16
This win is down to the resilience of tower block residents and ACORN. There comes a time when acceptance is no longer an option; that's when we come together & fight.
We won't stop until sprinklers are fitted in every Bristol block!
Join us:
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