A BYFLEET councillor who lost her family antiques in the Access Self Storage fire said she has “nothing to pass on to anybody” after the devastating blaze.
The storage unit caught fire last week, on the evening of Thursday 18 May, with firefighters on the scene for several days.
Amanda Boote, a Woking borough and Surrey County Councillor, said the more she delved into remembering which items were in there, the more painful it became.
She spoke at the county council's annual meeting on Tuesday to praise the efforts of the Surrey Fire and Rescue Service.
Cllr Boote lost antique clocks that her father had collected, as well as furniture passed on by her great grandparents.
With no place for them in her modern house, she had the items, along with some artworks and “lots of sentimental things that that you could never go and buy again” in the storage unit.
“It’s a connection with them as well. I think the emotional devastation is much worse.”
Cllr Boote said she had lost items from different generations on both sides of her family.
She added: “I’ve got nothing to pass on to anybody now, it is all my family history.”
The scene of the fire is now being investigated to determine the cause, but Cllr Boote, who represents The Byfleets on SCC, is calling for more information from Access Storage.
She said the one phone call and two “cold” and “generic” emails from the company didn’t do enough to let people know what the next steps would be.
Saying people were worried and quite upset about the communications from the company, she said people wanted to hear more about insurance.
Cllr Boote said: “Will we be able to go down and look for things?
“Or will someone actually go through everything to see if there are any remnants that can be saved?
“We’re just not getting any information like that at the moment.”
Many items that were in her storage unit she said she couldn’t go and buy again, and wouldn’t want to, because the emotional attachment was the important thing.
She said: “I’m not going to go out and buy another antique clock because it won’t mean anything to me.
“And it won’t have been given to me by my family who are not with us anymore.”
Having heard that “99 per cent” of what was in the building has been lost, Cllr Boote also said her partner has lost “everything” in the fire, having put furniture, clothes, photographs and more into storage when they moved in together during the coronavirus pandemic.
With a “really strong community” in Byfleet that “rallies round whenever anything happens” Cllr Boote said children had brought biscuits to the firefighters and the Corner Stop Cafe had made bacon sandwiches and given out coffee, being unable to open to the public.
Access Storage had not responded to a request for comment at the time of publication.
A statement released on May 24 by the company said the though the fire service had now left the site they remained on standby if needed, and that customers were still being asked to remain away from the site for their own safety.
The statement also said insurers and third-party surveyors had been appointed.