WITH reference to your front page story about the blaze in an eighth floor Fairlie House flat within The Mall Pavilions shopping centre, Uxbridge, (Blaze Panic,Uxbridge Gazette,September 10), thank goodness no one was physically hurt, I'm told.
But what a gamble leading LBH housing officers have been taking with people's lives for all the years since the Pavilions was roofed in the late 1980s.
Tim Price of housing contractor Hillingdon Homes should be ashamed of his complacent 'meets all required fire safety standards' comment to the Gazette.
Residents of the two high rise blocks and the maisonettes within the Pavilions complex have carefully and repeatedly expressed their fears about the council's sketchy attempts to patch up the blatant mistakes in fire safety (escape and rescue) which still blight this town centre enclosure.
At times the Gazette has tried to help us, but to no avail. Emergency services access here has been turned in to a 'panto' due to the Pavilions enclosure design and its operation.
As we so often see,profit has taken priority over safety - and then they try to swat away the wasps who raise that issue.
History is littered with the occasions when justice finally jumps on the errant powers that be and their speculator friends, but sadly often only does so after people have suffered.
Though the authorities still refuse to officially recognise it as such, The Pavilions is a densely populated residential complex besides being a crowded commercial place. There are 154 flats and maisonettes here, estimated population two to three hundred.
That should at least be reflected in a change towards prioritising safety within the bounds of the complex.
GARRY DIXON,
Fairlie House,
Pantile Walk, Uxbridge.
