Grenfell Tower

[P. G. Tipps]

This occurrence doesn't in any way reduce the probability of a repeat tomorrow, or the next day... unless something is learned from it quickly and the appropriate steps taken, and those steps clearly need to be taken at a high level.

Notwithstanding due notice of your rare ability to apparently see things that others cannot I agree with every word of the above, with one vital exception ... 'something'

Most of us I suspect would want the right thing to be done to hopefully avoid such disasters in the future ?

That can only happen after a full investigation by construction and safety experts rather than ill-informed demands from P. G. Tipps, R. Barrett, Jayne Lee Wilson, or any other armchair/forum pontificator ...

Then, and only then, can proper steps be taken at any and hopefully every level.

[teamsaint]

Here we go again. Another leftie rant shouting 'Unfair..unfair'. What an emotive load of codswallop. Are you an expert in fire prevention? No, thought not. So less of the rabid ranting, eh?

And the article regarding cutting the time it takes to do fire inspections? Aren't we just being a tad disingenuous and confusing correlation with causation?

No, any loss of life is sad but jumping on the leftie band wagon and beating the same old weary ...nasty bankers, boo hoo.. sorry, cuts no ice. What I DO find offensive is Corbynge milking it for all its worth. That and his 'Rent-a-Mob' supporters hi-jacking a peaceful demonstration along with Radical Housing.

There really isn't a " but " here.

How " peaceful" do you think those involved and connected ought to feel ?

It's really simple. This country is easily wealthy enough to afford good quality safe housing for all of its people. The state of our housing is a disgrace, and the huge numbers sleeping rough testify daily to this.

[pastoralguy]

There really isn't a " but " here.

How " peaceful" do you think those involved and connected ought to feel ?

It's really simple. This country is easily wealthy enough to afford good quality safe housing for all of its people. The state of our housing is a disgrace, and the huge numbers sleeping rough testify daily to this.

[MrGongGong]

Fewer Smart things. More smart people.

Nice to see you got your MBE for services to modesty in the Birthday Honours

[teamsaint]

The Ladbroke Grove disaster should have taught us most of what we need to know about the effects of not implementing safety measures ( ATP in that case) because of cost considerations,I should have thought.

[Lat-Literal]

Excellent post, Lat.

Thank you.

[Richard Barrett]

Most of us I suspect would want the right thing to be done to hopefully avoid such disasters in the future ?

That can only happen after a full investigation by construction and safety experts rather than ill-informed demands from P. G. Tipps, R. Barrett, Jayne Lee Wilson, or any other armchair/forum pontificator ...

Then, and only then, can proper steps be taken at any and hopefully every level.

I take it this is what you would say to someone living in another similar potential death trap elsewhere in the country. What kind of answer would you expect to receive?

[Anastasius]

I wonder whether your post or mine would generally be regarded as more deserving of the description "rant".

It's generally taken as the first person going on and on. Does that answer your question ?

Pulcinella....your take on political is clearly at odds with mine.

[french frank]

There are essentially two types of post here: those which attempt to give an assessment of this awful event, and those which then criticise the individuals for expressing that assessment. The latter aren't helpful. It's possible to disagree and give an alternative view - if you have one.

[antongould]

There are essentially two types of post here: those which attempt to give an assessment of this awful event, and those which then criticise the individuals for expressing that assessment. The latter aren't helpful. It's possible to disagree and give an alternative view - if you have one.

Well said indeed ..... do we not see, again, in this absolute tragedy the lunacy of endless outsourcing, subcontracting, use of consultants and the like ... ??? How far removed from council control where the outfit who fitted the suspect cladding ... ???

[Anastasius]

There are essentially two types of post here: those which attempt to give an assessment of this awful event, and those which then criticise the individuals for expressing that assessment. The latter aren't helpful. It's possible to disagree and give an alternative view - if you have one.

I agree but

"Where were safety regulations? Decimated in the interests of "cutting red tape."
Where is the accountability for something like this? Transferred by privatisation from elected officials to a company managing estates for profit.
Where were the inspections? Cut by cost-saving austerity measures.
Why was the cheap inflammable cladding added to the building? So that rich local residents didn't have the inconvenience of inequality staring them in the face.
In the hopefully better future this event will be seen as pivotal. It's the inevitable result of so many dishonest and divisive strands of government policy in recent decades. In the end people don't want to live in a society where something like this can happen. The UK is still one of the wealthiest countries in the world and there is no excuse whatsoever for such a disaster. Some will object to a "political" post on this thread. Well, sorry, allowing poor people to be incinerated is political."


is being judge, jury and executioner.

[P. G. Tipps]

I take it this is what you would say to someone living in another similar potential death trap elsewhere in the country. What kind of answer would you expect to receive?

If I were someone 'living in another similar potential death trap elsewhere in the country' I suspect I would be mightily concerned.

However, I do know in such circumstances that I would be demanding that the appropriate authorities discover as quickly as possible the reason why this fire spread as quickly as it did. A resident of Grenfell Tower reported that he has lived in the building for over 30 years. He said that there have been a number of fires in the building in his time there but each one prior to this tragedy had been contained to one flat, in accordance with the planned design of the building. Clearly something went badly wrong last week.

Talk of 'criminals' and 'murderers' in some of our press and media is absurdly premature when we have no answers yet to the important questions, and is, in any case, downright dangerous. Perfectly innocent (and relatively low-paid) public service workers at Kensington & Chelsea Town Hall might well have testified to that on Friday. Some politicians called for 'corporate manslaughter' charges even before a proper investigation had begun. Feelings are understandably raw at present among those directly affected and they should not be further inflamed by others, some of whom clearly have parallel agendas.

The first priority surely is to help and re-house the survivors of Grenfell Tower and provide them with financial assistance including legal aid in the future, if that becomes necessary. The time for further action is when the vital reason(s) for the spread of this fire are discovered and we then all know exactly what to do.

I would have thought that a perfectly reasonable approach shared by those of us who do not claim to have, as yet, any proper answers to the very serious questions currently being raised ?.

[Anastasius]

......And in my analysis this has to lead back to the restricted supply of land and the grossly inflated values it reaches - to the advantage of - the banks; the rich; the landlords - look for those with a vested interest amongst those who own multiple dwellings - more than they need for themselves and their family, and of course, the large landowners.

.....

Or the above which is blatantly untrue. As is the myth that large building companies are sitting on land banks. They'd rather be building houses to sell but many schemes are held up in planning....the very red tape that was being cut (I refer to the article noted in an earlier post) but which is now being castigated by some.

Perhaps if Labour hadn't opened the doors to all and sundry or some people bred like rabbits, then we wouldn't have so much of a problem.

But this detracts from Grenfell Tower where a cool analytical head is required rather than an emotive knee-jerk reaction from those easily manipulated by the media.

[ahinton]

I have to admit to astonishment and dismay at a handful of posts in this thread, whose callousness beggars belief and which I hope will not have been read by any of those directly affected by this tragedy; no names mentioned.

Whilst it will inevitably be necessary to wait for all inquiries and inquests to be completed before the whole truth is known as to what the cause/s of this terrible and terrifying event were, the criticisms already uttered by professionals including senior fire officers (one being the head of the Fire Brigades' Union), architects/surveyors/structural engineers et al - people who know what they're talking about - in respect of the type of cladding used in the refurbishment of the building and the way in which it was installed, the absence of a working sprinkler system, the absence of more than one staircase in a building of 20+ floors, the apparent lack of regular inspections to ensure that emergency lighting on that single staircase was all in working order at all times (which it seems not to have been, thereby further impeding escape attempts) - to say nothing of the wholesale ignoring of warnings various following reports on similar tower block fires in the past - inevitably seem to point to corners having been cut in order to save on costs (e.g. the apparent fact that proper fire resistant cladding of the entire building would have cost a mere £5K more than what was used) regardless of the potential consequences for residents.

Much has been made (and not only by a few people here) of alleged "political point-scoring" in responses to this tragedy. This IS a political issue but NOT a party political one (Lakanal occurred on Gordon Brown's watch, for example). If building/planning and/or health and safety regulations have not been fully complaied with, some of those responsible will be those who commissioned the contractors and, in many cases, these will be local government organisations or their own subcontractors. Even if all such regulations have been complied with, it will become clear that there are grave inadequacies in such regulations and those regbulations do not devise themselves but are laid down by lawmakers. That's why and how it's political - and made more so by what looks to be the prioritising of bilding / refurbishment costs over people's lives. That said, the initial response of one individual in an important office appears to suggest a belief that this may not after all be so, whereas two others in high office reacted quite differently where affected people are concerned. Once again, it is unnecessary to name names.

Given that there are apparently some 4,000+ such residential tower blocks in UK, it doesn't take an arithmetical wizard to work out that, if they all house an average approaching the number of residents in Grenfell Tower, there are probably some 2m people living in such buildings - that's around 1 in every 33 of the entire UK population. Two towers close to Grenfell look very similar to Grenfell itself. I'm not for one moment suggesting that every tower block in UK has been gerry-built and/or refurbished on the cheap (not least because I am not party to such information), but this event has clarified that they all need thorough inspection to ascertain if there are shortcomings in their structure and materials that can lead to inadequate safety for residents.

The only positive things to emerged from this appalling event have been (a) the swift, willing, generous and selfless help and support given by members of the public to those directly affected and (b) the wake-up call that has now been issued and which cannot be ignored, for there's no carpet large enough to sweep this under.

[teamsaint]

Or the above which is blatantly untrue. As is the myth that large building companies are sitting on land banks. They'd rather be building houses to sell but many schemes are held up in planning....the very red tape that was being cut (I refer to the article noted in an earlier post) but which is now being castigated by some.

Perhaps if Labour hadn't opened the doors to all and sundry or some people bred like rabbits, then we wouldn't have so much of a problem.

But this detracts from Grenfell Tower where a cool analytical head is required rather than an emotive knee-jerk reaction from those easily manipulated by the media.

A cool analytical head would
1. Figure out that sky high building land costs are due primarily to ( restricted ) supply and high demand.
2. Have provided some evidence of " other people beeeding like rabbits". ( It's always other people isn't it).
3. Be able to work out that the low inflation economic growth that the better off have enjoyed , over the last 10/20 years been to a considerable extent built on the input of substantial immigration.

Anyway, a question that needs looking at IMO, is why KCTMO seems to have been so unresponsive to residents' concerns, when in fact residents make up a majority on its board.