‘I wish we were being told more after Birmingham fire’

A woman who lost her childhood home during devastating fires in the West Midlands last week has criticised a local council for what she called a lack of communication with her father who escaped the premises unharmed.

Carol Squires grew up in the council property on Gorleston Road in Warstock, Birmingham, and her 70-year-old father William Lloyd was living there when the blaze broke out.

The fire, which started on Thursday, destroyed six homes in total and affected dozens of gardens. But while Squires’s dad was safe, and Birmingham City Council had since found him somwhere else to live, she said there needed to be greater detail about what would happen to him.

A neighbour has shared similar frustration over communication with the authority which said its officers had been helping those who were affected and in temporary accommodation.

But Squires told the BBC: “My dad hasn’t heard anything off them, apart from the fact they’ve managed to get him some accommodation.”

Neighbour Tony Aldhouse’s home, also a council property, was unaffected but he lost his garden to the blaze and said his and other properties, which backed on to a council-owned park, needed to be fenced off so that the public could not access them.

He said as the garden was burning, 14 fence panels were lost.

“It’s completely open at the moment, anyone can walk in,” he said.

“People have been taking photos standing in my garden.”

“I haven’t heard anything from the council.”