“They Were Warned”: Ver Meadows Fire Raises Urgent Questions for Hertfordshire County Council

By Claire Rice, Project Coordinator, GaTEssex

The fire that tore through the Ver Meadows Traveller site near Redbourn, in Hertfordshire, yesterday evening, has left families reeling.

With reports indicating that around 90% of the site has been destroyed, the scale of loss is unimaginable. Homes, possessions, memories — all gone. It is a miracle that no one was seriously injured or killed, but that should not distract from the truth: this tragedy was preventable.

In March 2024, Travellers’ Times commissioned an independent report by electrical safety specialist Ben Pearson TMIET, which was delivered to Hertfordshire County Council and made public that August. The report raised urgent concerns about unsafe electrical infrastructure, inadequate metering systems, and — critically — a lack of basic fire safety provisions.

Ver Meadows was one of the Hertfordshire sites that Ben Pearson and a Travellers Times journalist visited.

Be Pearson’s report explicitly called for regular fire risk assessments, as required under law, and flagged the absence of interlinked fire alarms and other essential precautions. These are not minor administrative oversights. These are life-and-death matters.

At the very least, there should have been routine fire risk assessments in place. Best practice — particularly on sites with vulnerable residents — would include fire points, regular drills, and visible safety equipment. From what we can gather so far, these measures were not in place. We will be pursuing Freedom of Information requests to establish whether risk assessments were carried out — and if so, whether they were acted upon.

While we await the outcome of the fire brigade’s investigation, one thing is already clear: conditions on the site allowed the fire to spread unchecked, until it took eight fire engines to finally bring it under control.

At GaTEssex, we have reached out to the families affected. Many are traumatised, uncertain of what comes next, and trying to pick up the pieces of their lives. We are doing all we can to offer support and stand alongside them in the aftermath of this devastating loss.

We also want to recognise and commend Travellers’ Times for their foresight and commitment in commissioning the Pearson report. It is no exaggeration to say that this kind of community-led journalism is saving lives. They saw the risks. They amplified community voices. And they put the evidence in the hands of those with the power to act.

But that action never came.

So now we must ask, and keep asking:

- What did Hertfordshire County Council do after receiving the Pearson report?
- Were fire safety and electrical risks taken seriously?
- Were residents ever informed of those risks or supported in managing them?
- And why were these warnings ignored — until it was too late?

This isn’t just about Ver Meadows. This is about a wider system that too often neglects Gypsy and Traveller communities — treating their housing as temporary, their safety as an afterthought, and their voices as disposable. That has to change.

The residents of Ver Meadows are not just statistics. They are families, elders, children. They had every right to expect safety and dignity in their homes.

GaTEssex will do everything in its power to support them — and to ensure this never happens again.

Claire Rice
Project Coordinator, GaTEssex
www.gatessex.org.uk

(Photograph: Screenshot)