An independent review of Wandsworth Council’s response to the Fox House fire has documented significant first-night failures, including hotel booking chaos and misleading updates to command, but did not examine why fire spread so rapidly through a roof void that was never inspected.
The review by Barry Quirk [pdf], a former council chief executive who led Kensington and Chelsea after the Grenfell Tower fire, was published by the council on 16 January. It describes the emergency response as a “shaky start” with residents left waiting for accommodation that in some cases never materialised. But its scope was limited to examining what happened after the 10 September blaze, not why the 2022 Fire Risk Assessment never inspected the roof void where fire later spread across 50 metres in 10 minutes.
The review comes seven months after the Regulator of Social Housing gave Wandsworth a C3 rating for 1,800 overdue fire safety actions.
Around 60 residents from the Maysoule Road block needed emergency accommodation on the night of 10 September. According to Quirk’s review, ICAB, the council’s emergency accommodation contractor, took “over an hour” just to arrange a hotel for one family.
Communication broke down between council officers on the ground and those coordinating the response. At 1am, the director coordinating the emergency response was told everyone had been allocated hotel rooms. Forty-five minutes later, he was informed that around 40 people were still in the rest centre with nowhere to go.
Some residents were told ICAB would call them “at some time” to arrange accommodation. According to the review, some waited for “a call that never came” and made their own arrangements “deep into the early hours.”
Quirk writes that “residents who fled fire… had to bend towards the bureaucracy of the Council rather than the bureaucracy bend to them.” Those who did find hotels were then told to attend the council’s homeless families unit the next morning, a request Quirk describes as “unreasonable.”
The uninspected roof void
The 2022 Fire Risk Assessment for Fox House never inspected the roof void: the exact space where fire spread across more than 50 metres in about 10 minutes.
Quirk notes that “the rapid spread of the fire may indicate a weakness of adequate compartmentation in the roof void.” The 2022 assessment, which never examined this space, advised residents to “stay put” in the event of fire.
Quirk observes that residents were able to evacuate relatively easily from the four-storey block, then adds: “The implications of these two points may need to be explored further.” More than four months after the fire, the cause remains unknown.
The council published a press release about the review late on Friday afternoon, 16 January. Cabinet members will not see the full cabinet paper [pdf] until 26 January. The cabinet meeting was originally scheduled for 12 January but was postponed at short notice, pushing scrutiny of the review into late January.
The press release emphasises that “emergency support was provided immediately” and praises “decisive steps to keep residents safe.” The cabinet paper says the review “commends Wandsworth Council for its strong response to the Fox House fire, highlighting examples of good practice.”
The February 2025 C3 rating found all 1,800 overdue fire safety actions had been outstanding for more than 12 months. By April, five months before Fox House burned, an internal audit found 299 medium-risk actions still outstanding, some from 2022. Random testing found 64% of council blocks had overdue work.
Cabinet Member Aydin Dikerdem characterised the backlog as things that “aren’t at the front of the tenants’ minds”, things like “no smoking signs in the communal corridor.”
Burke Close parallels
Five months before Fox House, gas explosions destroyed homes at Burke Close in Roehampton. Residents reported that “no one came to check if we were okay,” credited scaffolders with evacuating vulnerable residents, and said they opened the community centre themselves.
Council officers described their response as “exemplary,” claiming they were “on site within minutes” and stayed “until every resident had been looked after.” When residents disputed this, Dikerdem called the criticism “misinformation.”
At Burke Close, residents had reported smelling gas for months before the explosions. At Fox House, the roof void where fire spread had never been inspected.
Quirk’s 12 recommendations cover emergency planning, communication systems, and support for residents. The council has committed to implementing them between February and September 2026.
The council says it’s working with fire protection contractors to assess similar blocks and that roof void inspections will be “directed by investigation findings.”
Cabinet members will consider the review on 26 January.
Were you affected by the Fox House fire or have information about fire safety in Wandsworth Council housing? Contact news@putney.news.
