Open letters to Watford MP Dean Russell and Mayor of Watford Peter Taylor

Hi Dean,

As somebody who was first to react to the Abbey View fire at approximately 4.50am on Tuesday, June 12 after being startled by an explosion and the sound of burning flames I would like to ask you the question why you feel it more important to stay in Westminster rather than support the people of your the town in a time of crisis?

Five people in the Abbey View tower block lost all their possessions and homes. Other families who have returned to the tower block are in a state of shock and in some cases traumatised. Something does not feel right about your behaviour as MP for Watford.

It doesn’t appear you are supporting your constituents and ignoring questions posed to you. I would be surprised if you are still the MP for Watford after the next election. Your complete disregard of the Watford people who elected you is truly disappointing! I honestly don’t know how you can look yourself in the mirror!

I myself am not a hero, I am just a man who a few mornings ago continually shouted until my voice packed up to alert people in Abbey View to the fire. I did this because I didn’t want to see people die and also I wanted to avoid Grenfell happening in Watford.

The real heroes are the people whose stories haven’t been told who have been generally ignored by the press.

There are stories of people who fought through smoke in Abbey View when their alarms went off and alerted their neighbours so they could escape. There are stories of people who risked potential death in Abbey View to get other people out.

There are also people who phoned up the fire service to ensure they got there quickly, There is also the story about the bare chested man from the Meadows which I saw with my own eyes who ran around to try and put the fire out unsuccessfully and brought a family around to Harvest End who had heard my shouts to escape Abbey View.

I have to admit I can’t recall ever seeing you on the Meriden Estate supporting residents. In fact, we have seen more of international boxer Anthony Joshua on the Meriden Estate than you.

I also am really disappointed that you felt it more necessary to appear on TV supporting Liz Truss in Westminster for a leadership battle than coming back to support your very distraught and upset constituents. I would just like to know what you have done for the people of the Abbey View tower block and what steps will you be taking in parliament to ensure something like this never happens again?

You must do better! But sadly I doubt you will.

Hi Peter,

I will admit I did vote for you in the last Mayoral election and I feel that generally you do a good job, however from listening to some of my neighbours in the Abbey View tower block they feel not only let down, but not supported and have concerns that this could happen again but with far worse consequences and deaths. If I’m being honest we were exceptionally lucky in Watford that people did not die. It was the brave people and also myself who contributed to a near disaster being avoided.

You are a man who I feel does care about people in Watford and does have empathy, and unlike our MP who has spent most of his tenure brown-nosing Boris and is more often not seen and not heard.

I am led to believe you have been involved in assisting the effort to support those five families who lost their homes and belongings. However the people of Abbey View and the wider Meriden Estate need better communication on what is going on. I appreciate it’s an active crime case but people I’ve listened to on the estate feel angry, hurt and let down by Watford Community Housing Trust and feel that this incident has been largely ignored by the mainstream press. Also people feel unsafe in their homes with the behaviour of adolescents who do not respect the residents.

Furthermore to the five families I mentioned before, there needs to be support given to the other families who have returned to Abbey View because some of them are traumatised by Tuesday morning’s events and feel trapped at a building that was only built for 25-30 years of habitation.

As an aside, there are concerns from people across Watford too that the Liberal Democrat party in local government just wants to build on any piece of spare land and as one of your residents I am concerned about the constant building of large residential towers in Watford which people nickname the ‘Taylor Towers’ could lead to death. Is that what you want your legacy as mayor of this wonderful town to be? Should we be building tower blocks where the fire engines cannot reach the top of the building? Should we building at all? Could we not convert all the unused shop space? Should we not pause and look at previously agreed tower block builds after this incident?

Andrew Carberry

Harvest End, Watford