The Little Venice estate will be test site for changes across Westminster 

WESTMINSTER City Hall faces a bill of up to £30million with its plan to retrofit sprinklers to blocks of flats more than 30 metres high.

Chiefs from CityWest Homes, which manages the Westminster Council’s housing stock, told councillors the authority would have “choices to make” about how it would fund the cost of the huge project.

In June the council committed to installing sprinklers in the wake of the Grenfell Tower dis- aster.

According to a CityWest report, shown to councillors, the towers at Little Venice will be used as a test site to see how retrofitting would work.

Labour shadow cabinet member for housing Tim Roca told the Westminster Extra: “Of course, the absolute first priority must be the safety of everybody in these blocks. But the cost will be a big hit on the council’s housing revenue account. We would like to see evidence from the council on what they are doing to lobby government to claw back this money.”

At a housing scrutiny meeting on Monday, Alan Brinson, chief executive of the European Fire Sprinkler network, told councillors: “Sprinklers are extremely effective. They come close to eliminating deaths altogether. They are not free, but cheaper than a lot of other options.

A council spokesman said: “Following Westminster Council’s announcement that it has committed to retrofit sprinklers in blocks of flats over 30 metres in height, CityWest Homes has appointed an external consultancy to undertake a feasibility study at each block. We expect the findings of these reports to be available to us by December 2017.”