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?

The problem isn’t the decision to disassemble the tower, it’s the lack of meaningful consultation of the families and the way the supposed consultation was rushed through: four weeks when the fire happened almost 8 years ago. The fire happened in the first place because people in authority wouldn’t listen and had little respect for residents. So, it adds insult to injury and makes it apparent nothing’s changed. No lessons learned. A show made of consulting people rather than genuine, earnest involvement. When it’s a grave site. Some families have no remains. So it’s very harrowing to contemplate.

Lack of It’s also because not a single arrest has been made and the police have said there’ll be no arrests for another couple of years. When the public inquiry found all 72 deaths were preventable. It’s naturally frustrating and hurtful that a decision to remove the tower can be rushed through, yet arrests can’t be. While the tower remains, it’s a reminder to everyone that people must be held to account. There’s a risk with the tower gone, a powerful symbol of shocking injustice will be removed. It mustn’t become another Hillborough.

That's just so nasty of you.

I think you need to repeat the report by Sir Martin Moore-Bick in the Grenfell Enquiry and you would not be saying that

@MyrtlethePurpleTurtle

Thanks I have just read the summary of the second part.

Not sure if link will work after last night... www.grenfelltowerinquiry.org.uk/news/statement-publication-phase-2-report

I am not sure what it is you think I am saying, but this report summary so far isn't changing my view to anything different at first glance.

It needs to come down. Safely.

Like at the Twin Towers, they should rebuild, but not on the central core, the building can be around the perimeter of the building footprint with an open green peace-garden on central core area.

There are too many families in need of housing to leave this area blank or to allow it to be a dog walk park . IMO.

This podcast presents the injustice well https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/brand/m00201xv?partner=uk.co.bbc&origin=share-mobile

Every time I drive past it I think how awful it must be for everyone that lives around it to see it every day and for all the children in the school right next to it to have it hanging over them. A lovely memorial garden seems more fitting than a dangerous structure but obviously I can’t even begin to imagine how it actually feels.

Well said @surreywilds

I see it every day. It has literally no “meaning” - it’s a box wrapped. There’s no daily “awful” - people just walk by.
There’s no access and you can really only see it from a distance. It’s off the beaten path. There’s a green heart can be seen from a distance.

I have not experienced anyone having any emotional response to a big box with a green heart on it. Visitors ask - I explain it Grenfell Tower … “yeah, that was awful … where’s Carnival, where’s the vintage market ?” If you want anyone to visit the actual SITE - it needs to be something perfect for Insta selfie which is a bit pathetic and not respectful.

More poignant are the memorials at Thomas Jones school. The eye level installations in the area.
Make housing - it’s a need.

Bearing in mind the way that the people living there were viewed and treated by the local authority - which was the fundamental cause of their awful, terrifying and drawn out deaths in the first place - what do you think are the realistic odds of any housing built there being anything but a combination of social engineering, a bit of social cleansing in getting poor people out of the area and a fucking massive profit making exercise for some developers and companies actually culpable for the failings that led to the deaths (with only a tiny coincidence that they happen to have mates and family members in senior positions in the council)?

The families quite rightly fear any new housing will be hugely expensive investor properties that exclude the types of people that died and would reward those responsible with new opportunities for profit.

Oh, and maybe a couple of 'affordable' (in other words, not in the slightest) flats where the tenants aren't permitted access to the main development and a bench with a plaque round the back by the bins.

@NeverDropYourMooncup Oh, and maybe a couple of 'affordable' (in other words, not in the slightest) flats where the tenants aren't permitted access to the main development and a bench with a plaque round the back by the bins.

Hate to say it but there's quite a few people who pop up on threads about Grenfell who'd think this was a good idea. And probably that the families should consider themselves lucky to have it.

My understanding is that there is no consensus from the families which makes it even more difficult.

And where would these people have been living whilst they “sub let” their flats?

I thought that the government had committed to a memorial and no new housing? Is this not the case?

@AnAlpacaForChristmasPleaseSanta I hear you, my parents have passed away (naturally and in old age) and in some ways clearing up and selling the family home was harder than the moment of their death.
Saying goodbye to many of their things (what I couldn't fit into my own home) but I still got to got through everything carefully and photograph things even if I wasn't keeping them. I kept some jumpers of theirs so I still get to hold and smell them to reminisce. Grief is so hard, you get so scared to let go of their things because it really does mean the end.

I really can't imagine the pain those families have to contend with, the horror of the deaths, the publicity, inquires with no justice, no funerals, none of the rituals around death which we need to help us process, no mementos, no jumpers to smell and hold so just for a moment you can go back and remember them when they were alive.

I get the practicalities of dealing with the structure that is left of Grenfell tower and it obviously has to be dealt with sooner or later.
But the lack of empathy, understanding or compassion on here for the victims and their families is sad and depressing.

Clearly it would be council housing …. As the land is already in a council estate ….

Why would it clearly be council housing?

Oh FFS. Does it matter in a horrific tale of a substandard building that cost the lives of so many? I mean, really does it? I despair of a country inhabited by so many people who want to blame the powerless for everything, instead of the powerful who cause the problems in their pursuit of greed.

The Grenfell site is part of, and in the middle of a 17 Acre Housing Estate owned by The Council …

hardly prime location for luxury private flats.

@litup beautiful post and the last paragraph is also depressingly accurate.

I think the horror of watching that building burn is imprinted on so many people's memories, and no right-minded person could suggest the residents and their families deserve nothing less than compassion and justice.

Surely the most fitting memorial would be that RBCK are forced to rebuild on the site state of the art social housing so that families can live in a beautiful place, with a public garden centrally that is a living memorial to the lost.

Which part is nasty?