Carl Stokes, director, sole shareholder and only consultant at C S Stokes and Associates – a fire safety consultancy contracted by the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea (RBKC) for the past seven years – spoke to Inside Housing about his work on Grenfell Tower, which was destroyed two weeks ago in a fire. At the last estimate, the blaze had claimed 79 lives.
C S Stokes and Associates received £244,318 over seven years from RBKC, starting in November 2010, when Mr Stokes was hired as the fire risk assessor for Kensington and Chelsea Tenant Management Organisation (KCTMO) – which managed Grenfell Tower – and continuing until the most recently recorded financial period.
According to his website, he has been an independent fire risk assessor for seven years, the same length of time for which he has been contracted by RBKC.
He was contracted after the board of KCTMO decided to seek “a more competitive price” for their fire risk assessor. The board ended its contract with Salvus Consulting, which had just carried out a fire risk assessment on Grenfell Tower, rating it “normal”.