AN advocate for Grenfell Tower fire victims has told Kensington and Chelsea council the last seven and a half years have been 'gruelling' for the community as she doubled-down on calls for a new approach with residents.

Kimia Zabihyan, from the group Grenfell Next of Kin, claimed residents affected by the fire felt an 'us and them' mentality still existed among council staff and pleaded with councillors to reconsider how it engages residents from the Grenfell community.

Kensington and Chelsea council leader Elizabeth Campbell said the local authority was 'absolutely determined' to see through change.

At a meeting dedicated to reviewing the implications of the Grenfell Tower Inquiry's Phase 2 report on the council Wednesday night (September 18), Ms Zabihyan said the community still felt ignored.

She said: "My experience…. has over the last seven and a half years been gruelling. The council still behaves as though there are these high walls that you have to get past."

She said Grenfell survivors, the bereaved and the wider community still treated recommendations by the council 'with contempt' and claimed any changes the local authority had made had not translated well on the ground. She said: "I think the approach is really not right and certainly at this point has become rather fatigued."

Ms Zabihyan said survivors were being put off by the number of consultations they're asked to attend and felt the relationship between them and the council was still 'suboptimal'.

She said: "At the moment it is still very us and them…I think given the extent of the failings that have been detailed in this report, [sic] taking seven years for us to hear in black and white what people knew, I think you really maybe should think about a different approach now."

The campaigner urged the council to use grassroots organisations to engage with the community saying the current format of 'drop-in sessions' was losing its pull. Independent Cllr Mona Ahmed, who sat in the crowd, said the council should use external agencies to carry out scrutiny of its work saying many residents still did not believe the council could be held to account.

She said: "It's not adequate anymore to rely on questions in generic overview and scrutiny meetings… I think rather than new commitments, what we want is, and what would be helpful, is evidence of how previous commitments are being met and how the ones being made now are going to be met."

She said the council's senior management needed 'culture change'. Cllr Campbell said the council was keen to work with the bereaved, survivors and the local community to form a response to the tragedy.

She also said the council was a signatory of the Hillborough Charter, had trained more officers and improved how its resilience team deals with disasters. Cllr Campbell said the Grenfell Tower fire was "a wholly avoidable failure at ever single level" and acknowledged the council failed residents leading up to, during and after the fire.

Accepting the inquiry's findings, she said: "We failed to keep people safe, we failed to listen to what they were telling us. We were warned and we ignored those warnings."

She added: "We can't undo the harm that we've done but we owe it to people's families, neighbours and our communities to ensure that this report drives through the change that this council is absolutely determined to see." It comes as the council announced it was launching 'drop-in' sessions to seek the public's support in drafting its formal response to the Grenfell Tower Inquiry.

The council has a self-imposed deadline of November to submit a formal response to the Inquiry which found it 'bears considerable responsibility' for the dangerous conditions which led to Grenfell Tower fire. One-to-one sessions will take place on September 19 at the Kensington Leisure Centre and on September 24 at Chelsea Theatre between 4pm and 7pm.

Public meetings will also take place at Morley College between 6pm and 8pm on October 7 and November 7. These engagements are open to residents in a 500m radius of Grenfell tower as well as to all social housing tenants and anyone else in the community interested in participating.