Massive fire at high rise flats in London

[Benjamin_Nevis]

26 minutes ago, pandarilla said:

It may well be a middle management council type that has done the deal for this refurb though. It's certainly not a central government issue (specifically).

There's two things at play here. Who specifically agreed this deal and what shenanigans went on (kick back payments, ignoring warnings, cutting costs etc.)? This is where folk will be prosecuted - either on the local government side or the company side.

And then the bigger issue of the state of housing in this county. Why are companies like this allowed to get away with this shit? Why do we not have proper regulation?

You can't jail folk for the second issue but you can hopefully change the narrative.

 

If the process is anywhere similar to local authorities up here, a report detailing the works, materials, cost implications etc would need to go through the relevant department's director before being approved at a full meeting of the Housing (or equivalent) Committee. 

The state of housing across the country is both inconsistent bordering on dreadful. Things should improve in Scotland with the ending of right to buy, and indeed many Councils are building social housing again, to a very good standard (I'm about to move into one). We also, I believe, have stricter regulation on Private landlords through the PVL scheme. 

There still a lot to do up here, but at least it's a work in progress. The situation in many cities in England is absolutely dreadful, embarrassing in fact for a supposedly "leading" economic country. 

[sureiknow]

9 hours ago, Cerberus said:

So are the actual number of dead unknown or are the media being told to not report it?

Hopefully justice is done and people go to jail over this.

Seems the unofficial number of people living there is a lot higher than the official number.

A flat for two people for example had six living in it.

 

[ayrmad]

52 minutes ago, jupe1407 said:

If the process is anywhere similar to local authorities up here, a report detailing the works, materials, cost implications etc would need to go through the relevant department's director before being approved at a full meeting of the Housing (or equivalent) Committee. 

The state of housing across the country is both inconsistent bordering on dreadful. Things should improve in Scotland with the ending of right to buy, and indeed many Councils are building social housing again, to a very good standard (I'm about to move into one). We also, I believe, have stricter regulation on Private landlords through the PVL scheme. 

There still a lot to do up here, but at least it's a work in progress. The situation in many cities in England is absolutely dreadful, embarrassing in fact for a supposedly "leading" economic country. 

The original tender winners were £2.5million dearer, you'd have to ask yourself if it was wise to just rubber stamp in the tender price without seriously going over safety implications.

[ayrmad]

1 minute ago, Melanius Mullarkey said:

 

To be fair to the baldy headed little empty husk of a human being, he was never going to commit to that in front of a mewling BBC breakfast tv Paxman wannabe.

 

ffs, Charlie spends his mornings entertaining folk before they go to their work not grilling politicians, the cameras would be outside Bute House with a pitchfork laden mob if our government looked as culpable for a disaster.

I don't think a single government minister should be allowed to appear unless they're being grilled by an informed residents rep, these fuckers need to be forced to change their ways and this would appear to be as good a starting point as any.

[Boghead ranter]

1 hour ago, jupe1407 said:

If the process is anywhere similar to local authorities up here, a report detailing the works, materials, cost implications etc would need to go through the relevant department's director before being approved at a full meeting of the Housing (or equivalent) Committee. 

The state of housing across the country is both inconsistent bordering on dreadful. Things should improve in Scotland with the ending of right to buy, and indeed many Councils are building social housing again, to a very good standard (I'm about to move into one). We also, I believe, have stricter regulation on Private landlords through the PVL scheme. 

There still a lot to do up here, but at least it's a work in progress. The situation in many cities in England is absolutely dreadful, embarrassing in fact for a supposedly "leading" economic country. 

Corruption at its' finest 

[GordonD]

2 hours ago, Dee Man said:

Any official figures on dead cats yet?

That announcement has been held up - a bloke called Schrodinger is being a bit difficult.

[ayrmad]

A week earlier and we'd be waking up to or anticipating a Corbyn landslide.

[Sergeant Wilson]

41 minutes ago, sureiknow said:

Seems the unofficial number of people living there is a lot higher than the official number.

A flat for two people for example had six living in it.

 

That's it. There are so many people living under the radar in London. Immigrants, legal or otherwise. People who move around for work and doss with pals etc.

[beefybake]

2 hours ago, jupe1407 said:

I think we can all pretty much predict that the "public enquiry" into this will rumble on for a long period of time, at great cost with the final result being some local authority middle manager or QS taking the fall, whilst the real policy and decision makers will escape unscathed with the usual "lessons will be learned" shite being trotted out on several occasions. 

 

In  a technical sense you may be right. I think it's fairly obvious though that what is now on trial here is the umpteen years of deregulation, every cheapskate way of cutting costs so that bigger profits can be made, the labelling of poorer people as 'chavs'... do I need to go on ?

Edited June 16, 2017 by beefybake

[ayrmad]

3 minutes ago, beefybake said:

In  a technical sense you may be right. I think it's fairly obvious though that what is now on trial here is the umpteen years of deregulation, every cheapskate way of cutting costs so that bigger profits can be made, the labelling of poorer people as 'chavs'... do I need to go on ?

Yes, every last one of them.

[flyingscot]

3 hours ago, senorsoupe said:

One observation from a Canadian reading this is how the f**k could a building like this be allowed to have ONE escape route?? That to me is completely bonkers and would never, never,never fly over here. Every block of flats needs a minimum of two staircases

Many blocks I know of have one staircase, including a lot of blocks in Glasgow. Indeed before they were demolished, pretty sure Whitevale and Bluevale, which were the tallest blocks were 1 staircase. Can think of a couple with 2 but don't think it's that common. Not sure if a second staircase would have helped in this circumstance. 

 

[welshbairn]

1 hour ago, ayrmad said:

 

I don't think a single government minister should be allowed to appear unless they're being grilled by an informed residents rep

Harsh but proportionate.

[ICTChris]

Grenfall flats were supposed to be self-contained when it came to fires so the investigation will need to look into what happened to allow the fire to spread to other flats and across the entire block. 

[Arabdownunder]

Good to see her Maj visiting the survivors. Probably wishes she could offer some practical help. If only she had access to a large building in central London where those made homeless could be accommodated.

[peasy23]

BBC reporting that they understand that 76 people are classed as missing, although they are unsure if that includes the 17 already confirmed as dead.

[peasy23]

Live conference on just now. 30 now confirmed dead, including 1 who has passed away in hospital. No comment on numbers who are unaccounted for.

[Crùbag]

The Sun... who the fk buys this shit?

 

Quote

 

Sun journalist 'impersonated Grenfell Tower victim's relative at hospital'

King’s College hospital launches complaint with watchdog over behaviour of Sun reporter

 

 

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/jun/16/sun-journalist-grenfell-tower-victim-hospital

[ayrmad]

2 hours ago, Arabdownunder said:

Good to see her Maj visiting the survivors. Probably wishes she could offer some practical help. If only she had access to a large building in central London where those made homeless could be accommodated.

I'm sure they'd all rather ensure they keep their place on the housing list.

[HibeeJibee]

5 hours ago, sureiknow said:

Seems the unofficial number of people living there is a lot higher than the official number.

A flat for two people for example had six living in it.

 

4 hours ago, Sergeant Wilson said:

That's it. There are so many people living under the radar in London. Immigrants, legal or otherwise. People who move around for work and doss with pals etc.

Seemingly the tower contained 20 floors of flats with 4x two-bedroom and 2x one-bedroom in each floor. So if the press reports of 500 to 600 people living in the tower is accurate it's averaging 5 people per flat; 3 people per bedroom.


Naturally attention is focusing on the 'stay put' advice and there are calls for it to be withdrawn nationwide and replaced by 'get out' advice. However is that necessarily the safest way in all towers? If the fire is low down you could have hundreds of people rushing down 1 or 2 stairwells into smoke, and potentially the area of the fire itself - might also causes crushes and stop the fire brigade getting up to fight the fire.

If the fire isn't able to rapidly spread through flats and floors... granted in this case it did obviously... 'stay put' might actually be safer.

Edited June 16, 2017 by HibeeJibee

[sjc]

22 minutes ago, HibeeJibee said:

 

Seemingly the tower contained 20 floors of flats with 4x two-bedroom and 2x one-bedroom in each floor. So if the press reports of 500 to 600 people living in the tower is accurate it's averaging 5 people per flat; 3 people per bedroom.


Naturally attention is focusing on the 'stay put' advice and there are calls for it to be withdrawn nationwide and replaced by 'get out' advice. However is that necessarily the safest way in all towers? If the fire is low down you could have hundreds of people rushing down 1 or 2 stairwells into smoke, and potentially the area of the fire itself - might also causes crushes and stop the fire brigade getting up to fight the fire.

If the fire isn't able to rapidly spread through flats and floors... granted in this case it did obviously... 'stay put' might actually be safer.

Fire shouldn't be able to spread so quickly through flats & floors if built in accordance with modern fire regulations. Also all materials used should be to a certain fire rating.

Was the recent refurbishment done in accordance with these regs and the materials of the required fire ratings? If not, why not?

Edited June 16, 2017 by sjc