CROWDS going into KENSINGTON TOWN HALL ..... BBC NEWS now

[RTKangaMummy]

They were outside but now the crowds have all entered the civic centre town hall

I am not surprised that this is happening

Also, it's Ramadan : there were people visiting friends and family . Which means they couldn't have known how many people were in (or out of) the building.

If you crash your Lada, and get injured, can you then shout that Lada used cheaper materials, thus implying they should have used Volvo materials?
This is an invalid argument. It's about choice and knowing the options available. People resident had no choices and were not in a position to make an informed choice.

This type of cladding banned in many countries for its fire risk properties including the US

a three bedroom flat normally housing 4/5 people in a family would often have a family of 3 in bedroom 1, couple in 2, another family of 4 in bedroom 3, family of 3 in living room etc etc. All done on the sly and unbeknownst to authorities/council tax etc
the actual figure therefore is likely to be well in excess of 150?
I doubt it will ever be known, and would be suppressed even if it were known

Every single one of the 'calm down, dear' contingent I recognise.
They have each and every one been on threads I've been on since 2010 crowing at cuts to benefots, disability benefits and services towards disabled people, single parents and others on low incomes.

Every. Single. One.

Yet they cannot see how their self same ideology led to this absolutely needless loss of life.

These people are desperate. Too right they're angry. They want a co ordinated response to finding out information - they shouldn't need to be ringing around hospitals - heck the hospitals could probably better use staff answering calls for other things.
They need shelter.
They need the statutory agencies to TAKE RESPONSIBILITY not rely on donations for the public.

They need a prime minister who is visibly there, not hiding away with secret visits. The leader of the opposition managed it, the Queen managed it.... what did she expect finally emerging today? Coward.

This is not in any way a criticism of the emergency services on the ground dealing with these horrors. It's the local and government authorities who should be doing things and they're quite clearly NOT doing this - or not communicating with the people they are supposed to be working for.

By concealing the numbers, they are downplaying this tragedy.

They aren't concealing anything. They are sensibly not being drawn into speculating

Their priority is not feeding your appetite for news and conspiracy theories.

citrus
Sorry to hear about your friend but there is official temporary accommodation available to everyone who needs it, as well as the countless informal offers from the local community
And those who have taken up informal offers have been or are being assigned housing officers to make sure they are on the correct list

Unfortunately it didn't take long for rumours to start spreading that anyone in temp accommodation wouldn't be viewed as homeless by the council and therefore wouldn't be rehoused. This isn't true.

@BishopBrennansArse completely agree.

Seeing David Lammy weeping on C4 news was tough.

BBA you're right. Furthermore this has gone on since the 1989 housing act when Waldegrave and Thatcher took local authority housing out of the hands of local authorities.

sparechange

My point is that, if the RESIDENTS/RELATIVES/SURVIVORS want basic info from the Council, it is not the Councils place to decide whether that will 'help' them or not.

They have a right to the information as soon as it can be obtained. Expected occupancy figures should be fairly quick and easy to give to them but I appreciate that precise figures will be difficult given visitors etc. Details about who died will take longer for obvious sad reasons.

But it is not up to the Govt / the Council or anyone else to say what info those affected should be 'allowed'. The parallel with Hillsborough (and a number of other tragedies) is clear there. That is why many don't automatically 'trust in the authorities' any more.

The problem with wild accusations about the cause of this tragedy is that no-one knows what the cause is.
It is most likely a combination of many things, some structural, some procedural and some human
The elephant in the room is that in a block of so many individual flats, the likelihood will be that at least some of the fire rules and regulations will have been flouted by some residents.
But woe betide anyone who suggests such a thing - there will be another riot if that ends up in the official report.
I have read - and I have no idea if this is true - that the residents voted against sprinklers and there have also been reports that rubbish was left to pile up in the corridors. Posters on the other thread seem to think this was the council's fault.
I will be shouted down for this post, but someone had to say it. We don't know the cause, but you are all so, so keen to blame to fit your agenda.

There's a Conservative councillor on telly now (at last!). uses the pronoun I a lot as politicians seem to do these days.

But she has just bemoaned that there is no co ordinated approach. is that not her council's job???

bishop, completely agree.

The fire shot up the building in half an hour, cathf. There's no agenda in saying that is not usual, right or acceptable.

You'd think so, Piggy, wouldn't you. Not sure who they expect to step in?

cath , residents repeatedly repeatedly asked for rubbish to be removed. And I took an absolute age.

It had been removed by the time of the fire. Some of the rubbish was put there by the renovators.

But of course it is the resident's fault. Minor flouting of fire regulations are not unprecedented. they had no reason to know they were living in a death trap.

that's like blaming smokers in Bradford for deaths in the Bradford City fire.

I'm assuming I'm in the calm down dear team. I haven't crowed about a benefit cut in my life.

Not going to shout you down cathf.

Just going to tell you, in a 'calm and measured' way, how sickening your post is.

Also, cath, I somewhat blame the fire for killing people. I have no 'agenda'

Do you think we wait for people to did so we can push an agenda in waiting?

I can only begin to imagine your views on Hillsborough, but I definitely do not want to hear them.

typo to die

I'd rather take my chances with the odd bag of rubbish in the hallway than those open gas pipes.

I'm going to tell cathf in a not very calm and measured way to fuck all the way off with her disgusting post.

@Saucery
"The fire shot up the building in half an hour, cathf. There's no agenda in saying that is not usual, right or acceptable."

This was my reason for citing The Address Hotel fire in Dubai, which I witnessed with my own eyes. The fire started on a low floor and ripped to the very top of the building within a matter of minutes. That was a 5*, luxury, world-famous hotel, which suffered extensive damage (but thankfully very little loss of life - one fireman - largely thanks to a swift evacuation process & the fact that the fire started in the early evening when everyone was awake) due to that same cladding. I'm not saying nobody should be held accountable for choosing that cladding as the cheaper option on Grenfell Tower, but this point is being laboured to pedal some people's rich vs poor agendas. This cladding is not just used on HA buildings and certainly wouldn't have been used with carelessness or the intention of causing death and destruction.

And as other PPs have mentioned, we are all speaking on assumptions. It's impossible to know at this early stage exactly what the cause of the fire was and exactly what the (potentially multiple) failings were.

cathf, you may want to re-think your post in light of the fact that people have died due to many causes including cheaper cladding, locks not working, building detritus being left. These are facts now. Not spurious claims, possibilities or anything else, they're facts.

Oh, and I too have no agenda, but I suppose you will claim the same...