Grenfell Tower - what am I missing??

[TyrannasaurusJex]

Just listening to the news and various survivors and victims groups from Grenfell Tower giving very strong opinions on the plans to disassemble the building.
I'm not quite following why some want it to stay up? Do they mean as a sort of memorial? Can anyone explain?

Tories gave us right to buy, remember? Good old capitalism.

Tories gave their chums contracts for social housing maintance.

My brother said some idiots where he worked said “ Some of em shouldn’t even be ‘ere”
He gave them short shrift.
No one deserves to die in a fire knowing there is no escape.
The young mum and her children videoing from top floor while letting other panicking people into her flat was awful.
Even in extremis her thoughts were with her neighbours.

They are doing something about it though. There’s been scaffolding on my building for a year to fix it, currently I have no insulation at all on one side. The government has essentially written a blank cheque to fix every building with the issue (approx 50% in the past 20 years!). It won’t be fixed overnight.

Feelings can be valid but they shouldn’t rule everything. The cost of maintaining the crumbling building could house hundreds of homeless families. They didn’t even keep the twin towers up this long!

I thought that some council tenants were illegally subletting their flats though and that is obviously not allowed

The twin towers collapsed.

Yes that's what you should take away from this disaster. That some council tennants illegally sublet their flats to some of the more vulnerable people in our society. Don't worry about the multi million pound companies and their dodgy dealings that caused a horrendous disaster that could have been avoided.

Whether or not people were subletting without permission or were "illegal immigrants " has no bearing on the use of cladding which was known to be useless in a fire. The fire had nothing to do with immigration.

Not to a point, over 6000 acrow props are holding it up along with 24 hour a day monitoring for movement. The intense heat and cooling gas fractured the concrete and it is literally disintegrating.

Eventually, it would collapse, possibly killing more people, certainly destroying other peoples homes, it needs to come down and an appropriate memorial, like those at the world trade centre putting in place.

Because those people are grieving and many experienced PTSD. Those people need to be treated with compassion and care need. However I think that the building is unsafe and should be demolished.

We do need a permanent memorial.
It was a heartbreaking tragedy. I am not directly affected but I am still angry. In my bubble I never thought about the contemptuous way people living in social housing were treated and the scapegoating of recent immigrants by some parts of the media was disgraceful.

edit for typos.

Still no prosecutions though. Still plenty of buildings with the same cladding.

You say it cant be done overnight, the fire was in 2017, in Covid years alone, we handed out 4.5 Billion to fraudlant claims alone, forget the vanity projects like 'eat out to help out' which saved zero business and cost us hundreds of millions.

😀

Your outrage should be centred at the council landlord RBKC, who ordered the cheapest major works to wrap the building in sub standard flammable cladding, and at Arkonix and Celotex for manufacturing and selling it despite knowing it was not safe for tall buildings. Be mad at Rydon for being rubbish contractors. The council even ordered boilers to be installed in the hallways (not fire safe!) and allowed door closers to be removed (not fire safe!), calling residents ‘trouble makers’ for daring to report it. Oh and the emergency access was locked for the fire services on the night.

this sums up everything fucking wrong with this country.

We say nothing when millionaires and billionaires rip us off left right and centre , ramsack us in tax avoidance and backhanders, corruption on the levels of anything in the developing world, but because its between white public school boys, its called chumery and not 'real' corruption like the third world does.

But we call out the benefit claimants, the asylum seekers and boat migrant, who cost us fuck all in comparison....

It wouldn't hurt if people understood would it?

They shouldn't have an opinion, but an understanding is respectful

I get that but we can't just have a burnt building standing forever, it makes sense to bring it down and maybe build a befitting memorial or something.

I imagine if any sort of justice had been doled out to those responsible for this tragedy, the families might be able to move on

Without justice, this is just erasure

I think it's very emotional seeing the tower in person and I completely understand why people want it to remain.

Almost as symbol of the loss and destruction that greedy rich elites have caused people who had no choice.

It can't simply be erased as though it never happened and still no prosecutions brought

They absolutely should not ever build on that plot- But I bet developers already have their beady greedy eyes on it.

It is structurally unsound. The families of those who died have been allowed an unusual amount of say in what happens to the site. It needs to come down. It’s also not very nice for the people in the neighbouring blocks of flats who have to look at it every day. It must be very tough opening your curtains every morning to that huge tragic reminder. I bet nobody on here would like to see it every day. What happened was horrific, utterly awful. But maintaining that massive memorial skyscraper is not appropriate, to the victims nor to Londoners.

Definitely.
Seeing it in person was much worse than pictures online.

The Westway goes right past it.

I agree with you but I can understand why some of the families will find it hard to let the building go.

Is it appropriate that not a single person has been held accountable for all these deaths?

If people are tired of looking at it they should pressure the government to take action

It's time to take it down and build a proper memorial. As sad as it undoubtedly was, I can't imagine it's been particularly nice for people living in the vicinity to have to see the grisly burnt out remains of a building every day. Yes, it's covered, but still. It'd give me the heebie jeebies. It shouldn't be left standing forever.

That’s nonsense. The council tenants who were illegally subletting their flats were not providing a social service to the vulnerable in society!
They were defrauding the government and profiteering from the people they subletted to.