More than 80 residents on a north London housing estate have refused to leave their homes during a mass evacuation over fire safety fears linked to the Grenfell Tower disaster.
Most occupants of about 650 properties in the five tower blocks of the Chalcots Estate in Camden complied with advice to leave after fire officials deemed it unsafe on Friday.
Camden Council’s leader Georgia Gould warned that if residents had not left their homes after being visited again by the officials on Saturday, “it will become a matter for the fire service.”
On Saturday morning, she said dozens of residents have refused to leave, as some spoke of their outrage at being ordered out of their home as part of the nationwide safety operation.
One resident said the evacuation is “excessive” and that he intends to return to his flat, branding the incident a “knee-jerk reaction” by the local authority.
“I intend to stay put. I intent to go back in there tonight, it’s a knee-jerk reaction by the council, they had to be seen to be doing something,” he told the BBC.
“It’s creating chaos and pandemonium… This just seems excessive.”
Speaking to BBC Breakfast, the town hall’s leader Ms Gould said: "We've had a huge effort overnight to evacuate people. We have had 650 households who have moved out of the tower blocks.
"We've had everyone - council staff, volunteers, different councillors - all coming together with the fire service to move people safely out of their accommodation."
It comes after the authority said those affected many not be able to return home for three or four weeks.
In the early hours of Saturday morning many residents were either staying at two relief centres in the borough, or were being dispatched to accommodation across the capital by the council.
Up to 4,000 residents – including families with newborn babies and a Second World War veteran – were told to leave their homes by officers.
Waiting for a minibus to take her family to a hotel six miles away, Zega Ghebre, 42, said the situation was "unbelievable".
"I've got three children, an 11-year-old, a nine-year-old boy and a one-and-a-half year-old girl, she's a baby.
"We couldn't pack anything because we didn't know where we are going, but hopefully we will get back," she said as she stood outside Swiss Cottage Library, one of the emergency shelters in the shadow of the blocks.
Four high rises on the estate are thought to be covered with a similar type of cladding as that used at Grenfell Tower, where at least 79 people are feared died in the June 14 tragedy.
A nationwide safety operation was launched after the disaster amid fears dozens of residential tower blocks could be swathed in the same material.
Work had been due to begin on stripping cladding from buildings on the Chalcots estate, but Camden Council ordered the evacuation of residents on Friday evening following further checks and concerns over "gas pipe insulation."
