PLEAS to improve fire safety measures at a tower block hit by the tragic death of a mum-to-be are going unheeded, residents believe.

The need for sprinklers, communal smoke alarms and better signage are top of the agenda once again on the Balmoral estate, in Westcliff, following last week’s disastrous Grenfell fire in West London.

Following the blaze, Sir David Amess, the Conservative MP for Southend West and chairman of the All-Party Parliamentary Fire Safety Rescue Group, said sprinklers should be fitted to all tower blocks retrospectively. He said: “Sprinklers stop lives being lost as a result of fire. You can’t put any amount of money on a person’s life.”

None of Southend’s 13 tower blocks have sprinkler systems fitted. The law states that only buildings constructed since 2007 which are taller than 30m are required to have sprinklers fitted. It costs about £200,000 to retrospectively fit a sprinkler system.

Terry Brown, 69, has lived in the Pennine tower block on the Balmoral estate for 30 years and believes Government cuts have been responsible for a decline in standards.

He said: “When I listen to the TV about their situation at Grenfell I can 100 per cent understand exactly what they are saying. We have had the same problems over the same issues.”

For up to a year before the blaze, the Grenfell Residents’ Association had called for safety improvements.

Mr Brown, the Balmoral Residents’ Association chairman, said although the estate recently held a fire safety week and residents have been provided with advice, other improvements have still not been made - including fitting fire alarms in communal areas.

He added: “We still haven’t got the proper signage in place pointing out the emergency stairwells.

“We had signs but they took them down to paint the walls and never put them back again. There are a lot of residents who are very unhappy and don’t want to be here.

“The fire brigade say they don’t feel a sprinkler system was the answer in the case of the fire here but you ask whether if they put these buildings up today would they have a system and the answer is ‘yes.’

“They say it’s not possible or not feasible. But last year we lost a young woman and an unborn baby and we are still reflecting on that.”

Esex Fire and Rescue Service has confirmed it does support the retro-fitting of sprinklers and supports local authorities in funding.