Grenfell Tower fire- thread three

[RhythmAndStealth]

Seventeen tragic deaths confirmed so far, six victims provisionally identified.
Number of those who perished feared to rise into triple figures as search proceeds
Search for remaining victims expected to take weeks, sadly it’s considered unlikely that it will be possible to identify all the victims
Names of those still missing start to emerge
Nearly 80 victims being treated across six hospitals, with 15 still in critical care
Hundreds of people displaced and dispossessed, concerned about when and where they will be rehoused

Public inquiry ordered.
Criminal investigation launched.
Serious questions being asked about fire safety regulations, management of social housing, austerity and inequality.
Fire Brigade search of building expected to take weeks due to complexity of building, extent of fire damage and the necessity of undertaking a painstaking fingertip search.

“There must be arrests after this monstrous crime” David Lammy MP

‘Families rehoused last night been left clueless about where to spend next nights. No word from #kccouncil. Chaos.” Emily Maitlis, BBC

“We have to act as if it was our friends, our family in that block” Nick Hurd MP, Policing and Fire Minister

“Someone needs to be held accountable. These deaths could have been prevented.” Local resident to Sadiq Khan

Thread 2
Thread 1

Exactly, if they can legally turn a safe enough block into a death trap by using cheap materials, what on earth will unscrupulous landlords use after Brexit? By significant accounts, these panels were fire rated, it's just that didn't apply to the insulation and didn't account for the gap and then the higher temperatures caused the 'fire rated' parts to fail as well.

It scares me, honestly.

By the way - the school was built at the same time Grenfell was refurbished and also had cladding panels - has anyone checked that the school is safe?

Part of the school is extremely close to the base of the tower block and has obviously been affected by the heat and burning debris. As an aside my kids used to go to the council run playscheme in the school before the council privatized the whole scheme and made it unaffordable for most local families.) The school when it was built was touted as the answer to the lack of secondary school places in the borough...yet unless you live on one of the immediate estates surrounding the school, you fall outside the catchment area and cannot get a place. With not enough secondary places available in the area already, it's likely that if the school needs extensive repair then a lot of pupils will be displaced. We have heard from the street that the school has been damaged and melted, that the roof football pitch has melted. There were rumors going round that the whole block looked like it would fall down on the school, which at the moment seems unfounded, but yes the school is damaged.

Seeing as this is one of the richest boroughs in the country, the current lack of provision for secondary education in the borough is shocking. I heard that locally 50% of children (this may be primary pupils) are educated privately which might explain some of the lack of investment in state schooling. Up until fairly recently, all children were given a free full time nursery place in the borough school nurseries, about 2 years ago, this was cut for all families not on FSM, so working families had to pay for the shortfall. I felt this was a dreadful move to take away basic early education from the poorer section of society.

As mentioned all the local holiday playschemes were privatized and are now too expensive for many local residents. Wonderful play areas like the massive free playground at Little Wormwood Scrubs that used to be open for long hours providing another safe place for children of working families and for those kids who needed to get out of their flats and have somewhere nice to play...the hours have been cut down to a bare minimum. Little Wormwood Scrubs playground is now barely open at all. Many youth clubs that my kids attended closed because their funding was withdrawn. This lack of investment in the next generation is appalling. Especially with most kids living in flat/apartment without access to a garden and space to play.

People are angry because the rich/poor divide in the area is shocking, it's not just in social housing. The austerity cuts have removed a lot of good services and provisions out of the hands of the working class.

As for rehousing the displaced families in the local area...I wonder how they can actually do this in practise. The RBKC housing waiting list is very lengthy and very few properties ever come up for new families. Without building or purchasing new properties which will take time, I wonder how they plan to achieve this in the long term.

I am not surprised that Theresa May didn't face the crowd, I think it would have been far too dangerous for her to do so given the anger on the street. Saddiq Khan was not well received by some and he had about 30 body guards restraining people. I think May being Conservative would have been lynched...

I am aware that Central Government have apparently been cutting their funding to this borough for several years, but it is still a very rich borough and there is still plenty of money available so there is no excuse for not investing more time and resources into North Kensington and its poorer residents to give everyone a more equal footing and of course much better housing.

I doubt the school is safe tbh but at least schools tend to be in session during daytime and have well practised drills.

Oh xpost :( I didn't realise it was so close to have sustained damage.

Thank you for the new thread.

It's important that we keep up the pressure on our representatives, be they MPs or local Councillors. Following the recent General Election and now this tragedy it feels like people are gradually becoming more engaged in Politics - I know I am.

I watched a documentary on iPlayer last night about a group of commuters who had come together to try and take on the Southern Rail franchise by launching their own bid to take it on. I wonder if there is any scope for a cooperative of HA tenants to take on the management of their own blocks/Council wards in a not-for-profit capacity. Surely the people best placed to make the decisions on what needs to be done are those living in them?

I can well believe the planners are obsessed with how things look. That is their job. Building Control should be focusing on the integrity of the building rather than the looks

@GardenGeek I agree.

I think making this about 'rich people wanting prettier tower blocks to look at' actually really trivialises the issues which are 1) building regs not up to standard 2) building work not adequately checked before being signed off 3) the contracting and sub contracting process 4) the delayed review following the 2009 fire in Southwalk 5) the shit HA tenants have to put up with as that Helena campaigns on.

bangkok it definitely definitely isn't.

During the last recession the government invested millions of pounds into building new schools and refurbing or adding new buildings to existing schools. Because it was a recession labour rates were significantly (around 50% up here in the north) lower than if they had been built the year before. So the government should have got plenty if bang for it's buck so to speak.

I don't know the exact figures but we spent 3 months last summer revisiting a new built school to redo the firestopping. We were told to take it steady and not rush to string the job out as long as possible. The company we were subcontracting to was a businessman who had never done anything in the building trade. The job was painfully political. And in our area alone there were another 7 schools to be firestopped again. We moved onto something else as although the money was good dp just couldn't cope with the political side of things.

There was the school in scotland that blew down in the wind. And others that were redone as they weren't structurally sound.

And that's in the 2000's with all the modern design, fire proofing and modern materials. God knows how some of these older structres stay up.

I saw a survivor say he grabbed his passport and got out.

It made me think why would you do that.

The answer I suppose is, if you know you are going to lose everything then it's your proof of identity .
I suppose that's the answer.

@I watched a documentary on iPlayer last night about a group of commuters who had come together to try and take on the Southern Rail franchise by launching their own bid to take it on. I wonder if there is any scope for a cooperative of HA tenants to take on the management of their own blocks/Council wards in a not-for-profit capacity. Surely the people best placed to make the decisions on what needs to be done are those living in them?*

No. Right to Manage can only be enforced if 2/3 are in private ownership.

Right to enfranchise has a cost to it, which would generally put it out of the reach of HA tenants.

www.leaseholdknowledge.com/why-local-authority-leasehold-owners-have-second-class-rights

Also, Southern Rail commuters are majority professionals commuting into London for city jobs so they will have a whole host of expertise and skills to do something like try and take on the franchise. You generallly have to be in quite a desperate situation to get hooded by the HA and I'm not sure people generally have the additional head space available what with all the other shit they are dealing with.

Also they shouldn't have to. They should be protected through proper process and fair legislation and fully enforced and up to scratch building regs.

Did anyone hear TM say that there will be a public enquiry and if any person or company is found guilty of gross negligence or misconduct they will be severely dealt with?

That's what people need to hear and not the exposing of the poor guy with the fridge :-(

It wasn't his fault and he needs to know that.

@Frouby

The lack of fire stopping in PPP schools and hospitals (that was specified, wasn't out in for cost cutting but was signed off) needs to be a national scandal.

I can believe it would be v distracting for your DH to try and work in that environment.

dowser I don't think any thinks it was the fault of the guy with the fridge.

The Daily Fail does by the sounds of things :(

bertie Much as I hate the mail, it didn't read to me like they thought it was his fault. They just found out who he was an printed it (odious enough.)

They did make a point of quoting him saying how bad he felt and describing how he warned others.

The comments section is pretty kind to him too.

BigYellowJumper the DM had an article yesterday about the "man whose faulty fridge started the blaze, so the UK's most popular newspaper certainly is trying to spin it that way.

DM article - link text speaks for itself.

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4606078/Man-faulty-fridge-started-Grenfell-Tower-inferno.html

merry Sorry but I just don't read it like that. It said his fridge started the fire - well apparently that is just true. It doesn't mean it was in any way his fault though.

The second part of that headline talks about how he alerted people and further down said he saved a lot of lives.

I hate the Mail, but this time, I don't really think they're spinning it in that way.

Thanks for clarifying Bangkok

I can well believe the planners are obsessed with how things look. That is their job. Building Control should be focusing on the integrity of the building rather than the looks.

Having close experiences with both local council planning and their building control, I think they're obsessed with energy efficiency to the detriment of common sense!

I'm struggling with this. I don't want to selfishly make it about me but I don't have anyone to talk about it with.

This morning I'm so distressed about the report of a 5 year old boy who lost hold of his mummy's hand as they tried to leave. His fear and his mother's loss are at the forefront of my mind this morning. I can only imagine my own son's terror in that position, I'm haunted by it. Bless their hearts.

Well, I read it like that. We don't know the fridge was faulty. The block is reported to have a history of power surges which have damaged appliances. Why is it this man's - who the DM are very keen to tell us in the byline is Ethiopian, as if that had any relevance to their story - faulty fridge which they say is to blame, not the building's faulty infrastructure?

It also puts the focus on the individual, rather on the multiple failures of the entire system which, whatever has happened, will be at the bottom of this, as it always is for any mass fatality.

Someone on R4 just literally tried to shoehorn immigrants in!

Not sure who it was, the bloke he was arguing with was Owen Jones.

He actually said something like "well there wouldn't be corners cut if we didn't have to house all these immigrants".

WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK DID I JUST HEAR??

See- its happening already, deflect and distract from a WHOLE FUCKING SYSTEM THAT LED TO THIS, and blame it on immigrants instead.

We need to demand answers RIGHT FUCKING NOW before they shred all the paper.

QUESTION NUMBER 1 TO BE ANSWERED RIGHT NOW.....

WHY WERE THE RESIDENTS IGNORED TIME AND TIME AGAIN
WHO IS RESPONSIBLE FOR DISMISSING THEIR VALID CONCERNS??

merry I agree they shouldn't be focusing on him at all.

its right that public contracts should be offered by competitive tender, to avoid corruption and get the best value, but lots should never be put out to tender at all and those that are should be assessed in a more three-dimensional way in terms of value offered over time to the end user, not simply on price.

They also need to be administered and managed by people who are competent and understand what they're signing up for. You just need to look at the NHS PFI fiascos to realise that the "professionals" employed in the NHS to oversea the tender process and award contracts were way out of their depth and didn't understand the contracts they were signing.

Same happened with the banking meltdown with all those local authority "accountants" who "invested" their money in Icelandic banks but didn't realise they had no protection and didn't out 2 and 2 together to wonder why the Icelandic banks were offering high interest rates when other banks weren't!

There seem to be a lot of managers who've been promoted beyond their ability/competence level.

I work right next to the tower....on my way home the day of the incident I walked past a lady who I assume is a teacher talking on her phone about which kids in her class were missing and which were not expected to make it

May I ask a (potentially silly) question?

The council are saying 109 households are in emergency accommodation. How is that possible given there were only 120 flats and the level of reported casualties? If two families were in one flat have they been counted as 2 households? The council report makes it sound like there are fewer people injured or killed than those locally have indicated.