Some 800 households will be evacuated from five apartment towers Friday night in London, according to Councillor Georgia Gould, leader of Camden Council.
Residents will have to live elsewhere for four to six weeks while external cladding on the buildings is removed.
The council says the combustible cladding “significantly differs” from that on Grenfell Tower, the high-rise across town where at least 79 people died in a blaze June 14. But it was not fitted to the standard it had commissioned.
The government said Thursday it is testing 600 high-rises across England, in the wake of the fire at Grenfell.
“Grenfell changes everything,” Gould said.
The decision to move residents out of all five towers at Chalcots Estate in Camden was made Friday evening, Gould said.
She said residents’ safety could not be guaranteed. They will be moved to temporary housing, which includes hotels and homes of friends and family.
Also Friday, police said they are considering manslaughter charges among the criminal offenses that may have been committed at Grenfell.
