ouncil leader Nicholas Paget-Brown yesterday caved in to demands to quit his post over his handling of the Grenfell Tower disaster.
He was joined by his deputy leader Rock Feilding-Mellen who – as Kensington and Chelsea Council’s housing chief – oversaw Grenfell Tower’s controversial renovation.
Earlier in the day, Robert Black, the housing boss in charge of the tower’s management organisation “stepped aside”, adding to the pressure on the Tory council chiefs.
On Thursday night, Paget-Brown’s attempt to hold the council’s first meeting since the inferno in secret had descended into farce.
The leadership at first claimed they were excluding the public because of the possibility of disorder. But after a judge issued an order allowing journalists to attend, Paget-Brown chose to simply abandon the meeting.
He and his senior colleagues claimed an open meeting would “prejudice” the forthcoming public inquiry led by Sir Martin Moore-Bick – despite the law saying it is impossible to prejudice a judge.
In the wake of the fiasco, Grenfell residents were joined by opposition councillors and other senior politicians in calling for the council leader to go.
Paget-Brown’s position became even more precarious when even fellow Tories turned on him and Downing Street refused to back him. Then Black, chief executive of Grenfell’s tenant management organisation (TMO), quit his post.
And at 5.30pm, the council leader said he had to “accept my share of responsibility for these perceived failings”.
He added he would go once a replacement was appointed. But his natural successor, Feilding-Mellen, 38, removed himself from the running by quitting too.
As housing chief, he was in charge of the £8.6million refurbishment of the 24-storey tower last year, including the installation of the cladding blamed for spreading the blaze.
Labour group leader Robert Atkinson, who had called for Paget-Brown’s resignation, said last night: “My initial feeling is one of relief.
“With the departure of the leader, perhaps the council can now begin to organise itself to provide the services the residents so desperately need.
“He has totally failed in the leadership role since the disaster more than two weeks ago.”
The council – the UK’s wealthiest – had been slated for their failure to organise proper relief and information for the survivors and victims’ families after the blaze, which claimed at least 80 lives.
Kensington and Chelsea TMO chief Black attended Whitehill Secondary School in Dennistoun, Glasgow, from 1971 to 1977.
He went on to study at Gray’s School of Art, part of Robert Gordon University in Aberdeen, between 1977 and 1982.
The TMO said yesterday he had resigned to “concentrate on assisting with the investigation and inquiry”.
Accounts show Black was one of four senior bosses at KCTMO whose annual salaries total £760,000.
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