A GRENFELL Tower survivor who publicly predicted the blaze said yesterday that government failures to make changes five years on feel “almost like a betrayal.”

On the anniversary of the fire, Edward Daffarn, who escaped the blaze from his 16th-floor flat, described Grenfell as a “tragedy in three acts,” with the third being failures by the housing department to implement changes over the last half a decade. 

The first of those acts, he explained, was the mistreatment of tenants by landlords, who failed to address health and safety concerns raised by residents in the years preceding the blaze.

The “sheer violence and trauma” they suffered on the night of the fire is the second “act,” he continued. 

The 59-year-old social worker, who lived in the tower for 15 years and had blogged on its problems, said residents were “just left on the street” in the days following the fire, and they have felt “abandoned” by the government ever since.

He said people feel this way because “nothing has changed” in the years since, highlighting how few of the recommendations made by the public inquiry have been written into law. 

Social housing residents are still living in buildings with the same cladding being blamed for the rapid spread of the fire, he added. 

“We’re now five years into the saga and we’ve travelled so little distance up the road in terms of change that it feels almost like a betrayal,” he said. 

“Those people with the responsibility to bring us change have acted in such an incompetent and indifferent manner to us that we are where we are.

“The fact that tonight, disabled people who live in high-rise buildings face the exact same danger as residents of Grenfell faced on the night of June 14 2017, should bring shame on this government.”

The government threw out proposals last month to make it a legal requirement for landlords to make personal eviction plans for disabled residents, angering bereaved families and survivors. 

Mr Daffarn, who is also a committee member on campaign group Grenfell United, will be among those remembering the 72 people who lost their lives in the blaze five years ago on Tuesday. 

A silent walk is due to be held from the base of the tower at 6.30pm.