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?

That poster is right. Try and grow some fucking empathy. Illegal immigrants or not. No-one. Absolutely no-one should die like that

A life is a life. Anyone who thinks that an 'illegal' immigrants life is worth less than theirs is a cunt.

OP didn't say she didn't think the reasons and feeling were legitimate, but that she didn't understand what those reasons were. I think it's a reasonable question to ask and something that can be discussed in a respectful manner.

I can't begin to understand how the grieved must be feeling, and arguably I don't need to, but I don't think it's wrong to want to try and gain some understanding.

It’s costing tens of millions of pounds a year to keep the tower standing. That is a terrible use of money. The money would be far better spent on removing cladding from the hundreds of unsafe tower blocks we still have around the country - that would also be a far better legacy.

Totally agree with you.

Are you from London? Because you must have missed the 7th of July memorial in Hyde Park, the Westminster Bridge attack memorial, the plaque outside Harrods for the victims of the IRA bombings etc.

London is full of memorials for victims of terror, less so for the victims of corporate manslaughter although the Southall train crash victims got a memorial garden.

That’s rude

Don't even know where to start with this.
No wait yes I do.
Victim blaming.
I'll stop there because this post has made me really angry.

I’ve read what you said and it’s one of the most offensive things I’ve seen on this site.

Depends on what they're planning really. If they want to tear it down and put up new housing, then, no. If they want to tear it down to build a memorial park, then, yes.

It doesn't seem reasonable to just leave it up forever.

Not sure what you are trying to say here. As far as I can see the fact that some people who lived there were illegal immigrants is completely irrelevant to the question of what happens to the building.
Are you saying the lives of illegal immigrants are less important, or that it's their fault? Or that their relatives matter less than others?

Obviously the illegal subletting is not the fault of the sublettees anyway

Just read the article on the BBC, it's pretty clear.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cpwxpnxyrnvo

Spokesman for the families slammed the £340 million cost of maintaining it and providing a memorial and stated they need to get on with it. Police state all 71 bodies were recovered.

I'm really sorry about everyone's loss but it should have been carefully removed awhile ago now the money spent keeping it standing could have been spent getting the cladding off other buildings and stopping it happening again instead we are years on and cladding is not being removed

I haven't seen anyone suggesting leaving it up forever, but some think it should stay until those responsible are prosecuted.

Which I suppose realistically would amount to the same thing.

Well, quite. We need as much understanding as we can get in this world,

I have to agree with comments saying the building is unsafe and it will not help anyone if it collapses and causes further damage.
Money would be better spent on making sure other tower blocks are safe.

It needs to come down and something like a memorial garden should be made.

The event was horrific. I can’t imagine what it must feel like for the people neighbouring the remains of the building. Every time they step outside and see the shell, it must bring the terrible events of that night back.

I think also there's the fear that if the tower comes down, the fire will be easier to forget, or gloss over. With no conviction there's no feeling of resolution. At the moment the tower dominates the skyline of that part of London - it's literally keeping it in mind - and maybe that will lead to a conviction - or at least something.

Again this is completely irrelevant. The council don't know who's in any house or flat at any given time. This would not have made any difference to the fire or rescue efforts. Do you think that when there's a fire the fire brigade go to the council to get a list and check off the tenants against it before rescuing them? What about children, who aren't on the tenancy?

No one’s getting prosecuted for this. It’s a series of combined failures not one responsible party. Potentially the cladding company could be blamed because they had the wrong fire rating information. However really it was the air gap not the cladding being on fire that made this move so fast.

Still to this day there’s hundreds, potentially thousands of buildings with this potential combination of flaws. It’s absolutely terrifying. Not just tower blocks but schools, hospitals - you name it.

All the individual components by themselves aren’t the sole cause. It was the combination of them together in a system which made this so horrific. Systems aren’t tested together; and even when they are it’s in relatively favourable conditions. It’s absolutely terrifying really that still to this day architects, engineers, etc. are still questioning what’s safe and what’s not. There’s no answer until you literally test it by setting a built building on fire.

You can see on architecture forums people talking about this. No one wants to design a building which is a death trap. And we know now it’s a bad idea now but before people didn’t realise this could happen like this. And people are still questioning what’s safe and what’s not.

Surely the best legacy would be to build some really high quality desperately needed social housing on the site and have a memorial incorporated into the grounds.

There's another thread about this. The feasibility of housing on the site is unlikely.

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/_chat/5268680-grenfell-tower-to-be-demolished?page=1

Hmm I think this is a little naive. People did know that it wasn't safe before it happened. I listened to a lot of the findings of the inquiry on radio 4. Lots of people involved in the manufacture and sale of the cladding did know it wasn't safe. The safety testing was based on unrealistic conditions and people were aware of that. Also people were aware that it wasn't safe in the way it was being used. There had been other fires in similar buildings. Cost cutting and profit were the reasons why a blind eye was turned. Because no single person was in charge, and there were multiple contractors and subcontractors involved, everyone blamed everyone else and no one will be held to account. In addition the design of Grenfell wasn't safe and that was also raised before it happened.