Cladding on 27 tower blocks in 15 local authority areas has failed fire safety checks, the government has said.
It comes after Camden Council became the first authority to evacuate residents over fire safety concerns, asking people living in four high-rise buildings to leave yesterday night.
The council said it had no option but to move the residents of 650 flats, while work is carried out.
But 83 residents living on the Chalcots Estate refused to leave their homes.
The council’s leader Georgia Gould said the local authority was left with little choice when the fire service advised there was nothing to be done to ensure the safety of the residents.
She said the fire service ‘told us they could not guarantee our residents’ safety in those blocks’.
‘I know it’s difficult, but Grenfell changes everything and I just don’t believe we can take any risk with our residents’ safety and I have to put them first.
‘I offered to pay for fire stations to be stationed outside all of those blocks so we could have a couple of days to get the work done but the message was there was absolutely nothing I could do to make those blocks safe that night.’
She said that if people still choose to not leave their homes then it would ‘become a matter for the fire services’.
The Department for Communities and Local Government’s announcement comes amid a national safety operation to identify buildings with cladding like that used on the tower block in north Kensington.
Portsmouth and Brent were named along with Camden, Manchester, Plymouth and Hounslow as local authorities with buildings that failed tests.
