Tipton flats fire evacuees still in Wolverhampton hotel two weeks after blaze
Half a dozen people who lived in a fire-hit block of flats are still in a hotel almost two weeks on.
The former residents of Greenlawns flats in Tipton are currently housed at Redwings Lodge in Waterloo Road, Wolverhampton.
Around 60 people had to be evacuated when the fire ripped up the side of the building on July 27.
Those living in the four-storey block feared the worst with one resident at the time declaring ‘this could have been another Grenfell’.
Paramedics were on the scene treating a man and a woman for breathing in smoke but they did not need to go to hospital and nobody else was injured.
Andrea Pitts, aged 47, who had been living at Greenlawns for more than two years, said: “I was fast asleep on the settee when it happened, I heard someone shouting.
“I was on the top floor. For medical reasons I take Diazepam, Pregabalin and epilepsy tablets.
“I was the third one to be brought out, we were just walked onto the grass, basically just left.
“The police told us to walk back as far away as we could from the building.”
Ms Pitts claimed she had been told they will not be able to move back to the flats for at least three months.
Single-mother Kelly Everitt, 34, said: “We’re stuck with nothing, we’re stuck on our own, we’re left on our own that’s how I feel.”
She added: “I don’t want to go back to Greenlawns, I am literally scared to go back in that house and sit in there and go to sleep.
"I’m asthmatic, I suffer from anxiety and depression. It’s not nice living in here, I’ve got a 17 year old boy who’s got ADHD. I am a nervous wreck.”
Three boys aged 16, 12 and 15 were arrested on suspicion of arson. They were given bail pending further inquiries.
