Grenfell Tower block disaster

[urban genie]

I don't understand why this has become an issue about rich versus poor. Jeremy Corbyn has called it a tale of two cities with Kensington divided into rich and poor

Isn't it a good thing that one of the wealthiest areas in the world also has accommodation for poorer people. Isn't that exactly the sort of thing he wants

I'm really confused because the alternative is poor areas for poor people (you can call them ghettos if you want) and rich areas for rich people which is against everything Corbyn and the like are vehemently against (all property is theft isn't it)

I don't really understand the cause of justice that everyone is being asked to rally around

People tragically died in a fire but somehow the way to solve it is to get people marching on the streets demanding an enquiry (which they've already got yesterday) emergency support (which they've got today) and apparently no letters to be sent to people in other unrelated flats about breaking the rules they agreed to follow however petty they might think they are

It's become an issue because over the last decade there has been a steady reduction in social housing across london as estates have been demolished and renovated with new builds or refurbed flats being sold off to private owner rather than used for social re-housing .
Their is a commin belief that councils like kensington, westminster etc have had policies to socially cleanse areas to make room for richer residents.

In tamdem to this residents in social housing, be it estates or tower blocks have complained that concerns over improvements and making safe their residences have been ignored and they feel that they are purposely neglected, while the more affluent accomodation is looked after.

At the same time many will feel that the will now be moved out of the borough rather than rehoused in their comunity.

 

[Bigga]

I don't understand why this has become an issue about rich versus poor. Jeremy Corbyn has called it a tale of two cities with Kensington divided into rich and poor

Isn't it a good thing that one of the wealthiest areas in the world also has accommodation for poorer people. Isn't that exactly the sort of thing he wants

I'm really confused because the alternative is poor areas for poor people (you can call them ghettos if you want) and rich areas for rich people which is against everything Corbyn and the like are vehemently against (all property is theft isn't it)

I don't really understand the cause of justice that everyone is being asked to rally around

People tragically died in a fire but somehow the way to solve it is to get people marching on the streets demanding an enquiry (which they've already got yesterday) emergency support (which they've got today) and apparently no letters to be sent to people in other unrelated flats about breaking the rules they agreed to follow however petty they might think they are

Talk about 'out of touch'!!

Not only is it about cost cutting, it's about a rich voice being heard over a poor one. This is a society where well-to-do people get to have a say on what their neighbourhood looks like and if you ain't got the sheckles? Tough!

 

[vonkeynotvenky]

I see pain and suffering and pain and suffering which looks like it could have been prevented. And I also see political opportunists muddying the water using the situation to garner support at a time when the main objective should be to help the victims and their families.

 

[Bluemanc100]

What would you do if you were stood at the bottom looking up and watching your parents burn to death stuck in a flat that they had no chance of escaping? How would you then feel if it was totally preventable and only happened because of cost cutting and making money?

I don't understand the attitude towards protesting in the UK. Whether it achieves anything is questionable but people are rightly absolutely raging.

We have no clue whether there was any cost cutting... the likely reason is weak fire and building regs.. a specialist lawyer on TV tonight said the fire regs were a "minimum standard" and that councils "could choose to do more"... that's BS because the contractors and bill payers will comply, nothing more, nothing less

The answer therefore is stricter more stringent rules but once again it's after a tragedy and not proactive amendment for the safety rules.

 

[Monkfish]

I see pain and suffering and pain and suffering which looks like it could have been prevented. And I also see political opportunists muddying the water using the situation to garner support at a time when the main objective should be to help the victims and their families.

The main objective for me should be that it does not happen again

 

[BlueAnorak]

Regarding Fire Safety Assessments they may well be Self Assessments but the buildings I manage they are done by an expert external company and their reports are acted on by the company I work for.

I think that retrofit of sprinklers should now be mandatory. They should not necessarily be heat activated ones because some people, with a grudge for instance, will set them off maliciously. Perhaps it should be looked at to see if they could be activated by the fire panel which are usually in the lobby area. The fire brigade were there within 6 minutes, compartmentalisation should in theory contain fires for 30-45 minutes.

This should never have happened. It's utterly tragic.

Thanks for the information.
Sadly I doubt that sprinklers can be retrofitted to tall buildings as the mains water pressure isn't high enough. The top floor of every building would have to be converted to a massive water tank and when full that would be very heavy - most buildings would not be able to take the weight.
Passive fire protection in high rise buildings works if it isn't side stepped by inflatable cladding to make it a death trap.

 

[johnmc]

Talk about 'out of touch'!!

Not only is it about cost cutting, it's about a rich voice being heard over a poor one. This is a society where well-to-do people get to have a say on what their neighbourhood looks like and if you ain't got the sheckles? Tough!

The fact is a lot of money was spent on making the building less unsightly for the benefit of the rich neighbours whilst making the poorer of society less safe inside. It's absolutely outrageous. I don't know who exactly is responsible. You could blame this government but it could have been any of them.

I hope whoever is responsible gets what they deserve and I hope this tradegy changes the whole landscape and ensures it never happens again

 

[goalmole]

We have no clue whether there was any cost cutting... the likely reason is weak fire and building regs.. a specialist lawyer on TV tonight said the fire regs were a "minimum standard" and that councils "could choose to do more"... that's BS because the contractors and bill payers will comply, nothing more, nothing less

The answer therefore is stricter more stringent rules but once again it's after a tragedy and not proactive amendment for the safety rules.

That's the question though, isn't it? Why exactly were the fire and building regulations weak, or more to the point why had they been made weaker over the past few years. Ostensibly to cut red tape. For that read to make it easier for the landlords to get away with spending as little as possible while maximising their profits, at the cost of putting peoples, poor peoples, lives at risk. That is what the anger and protest is about and it doesn't stop at buiding regulations. The interests of the less well off have been neglected to breaking point. That's something else that we can chalk down to "austerity". After 40 years of right wing governments what more could be expected.

 

[TCIB]

These are dark times regarding information. the facts are many social media posts are made by bots or paid marketing companies. It is hard to discern who has an agenda these days and who just wants the information to be disseminated. The tories spent over 1m on it during the election, i would be a fool to think Labour would not be looking at ways to garner more support surreptitiously with similar tactics.

The media throughout the world is 90% controlled by 6 business empires, all of them have agendas layered throughout their networks. They influence and are indeed influenced themselves and not for the greater good but to help control populations.

 

[BlueAnorak]

It's risk assessment that came under new regulations for self-assessment. It doesn't affect building regulations and the legal standards of fire protection and escape routes.

My later point indicates that the coroner of the Camberwell fire in 2009 wanted building and fire regs looked at because new external cladding had allowed the fire to spread between floors. Neither the government or the local authority had progressed this judgement through the Gocernment/Local Authority Association joint BRAC (Building Regulations Advisory Committee) in 4 years!