London Fire

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/jun/17/tragedy-grenfell-tower-lives-money-fire-safety

I see your link is to the only newspaper that is more left wing than The Mirror. Personally, I would never quote or pay any attention to anything I read in The Sun or The Mail because they will spout rubbish in favour of the Conservatives, and likewise I pay little attention to the Mirror or Guardian because they they do the complete opposite.

Is that the best you can do?

The Guardian piece is pretty much an interview with Ronnie King, secretary of the all-party parliamentary group on fire safety.

He is apolitical and vastly experienced as a former fireman and Chief Fire Officer.

Most newspapers carried the same story in print and online, and used the same quotes. So did the BBC, Sky News and many other broadcasters.

Just for balance, try this from The Sun that also uses the Ronnie King quotes. If that is an example of a paper 'spouting rubbish in favour of the Conservatives' then they really are in trouble.

https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/3824764/c ... installed/

When it comes to local authorities, you must know that the party which does not have control of the council will always come out with just about every proposal under the sun knowing full well that the party holding the majority cannot possibly carry out every single proposal. They cannot magic money out of thin air, and you can only charge so much in council tax. Easy to play politics here, if Labour were the ruling party the Conservatives would be coming up with a hundred different ways to spend the tax payers money knowing full well that the money does not exist. I doubt if every single labour controlled council has ensured their high rise blocks are 100% safe, but I am sure every building, road system, in fact anything at all that poses a risk can be made safe or safer providing we are all prepared to pay for it.

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/jun/17/tragedy-grenfell-tower-lives-money-fire-safety

I see your link is to the only newspaper that is more left wing than The Mirror. Personally, I would never quote or pay any attention to anything I read in The Sun or The Mail because they will spout rubbish in favour of the Conservatives, and likewise I pay little attention to the Mirror or Guardian because they they do the complete opposite.

Is that the best you can do?

The Guardian piece is pretty much an interview with Ronnie King, secretary of the all-party parliamentary group on fire safety.

He is apolitical and vastly experienced as a former fireman and Chief Fire Officer.

Most newspapers carried the same story in print and online, and used the same quotes. So did the BBC, Sky News and many other broadcasters.

Just for balance, try this from The Sun that also uses the Ronnie King quotes. If that is an example of a paper 'spouting rubbish in favour of the Conservatives' then they really are in trouble.

https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/3824764/c ... installed/

When it comes to local authorities, you must know that the party which does not have control of the council will always come out with just about every proposal under the sun knowing full well that the party holding the majority cannot possibly carry out every single proposal. They cannot magic money out of thin air, and you can only charge so much in council tax. Easy to play politics here, if Labour were the ruling party the Conservatives would be coming up with a hundred different ways to spend the tax payers money knowing full well that the money does not exist. I doubt if every single labour controlled council has ensured their high rise blocks are 100% safe, but I am sure every building, road system, in fact anything at all that poses a risk can be made safe or safer providing we are all prepared to pay for it.

What are you talking about? That is the lamest example of deflection.

This is not about an opposition party with wish lists, and certainly not within local authorities. The issue I highlighted - reinforced by the numerous interviews and statements from senior fire safety people including Ronnie King - is that recommendations from arising from the Lakanal House inquest (6 dead where fire transmitted via new external cladding was a major factor) have been rejected or postponed indefinitely by government ministers. They have also complained that the government (this government) have refused to discuss the issue.

Where I do agree with you is that it will cost money to introduce many of the changes recommended, although fire resistent cladding materials may not be much more expensive than the flammable ones. Public statements or 'one the record' replies to questions by ministers over the years since Lakanal House point to an unwillingness to increase any costs in an age of austerity. I'm not convinced that sprinklers are the main answer, although that is the issue the Fire Service often pushes hardest, but high rise new builds will have then as standard. The pilot retrofit sprinkler instalation in a Sheffield tower block (at Callow Mount) in 2011 - in response to Lakanal - cost over £100k for a 12/13 storey block. The trade body for sprinkler systems put in over £80k to the cost to create a 'show block' that other councils could look at and replicate. I don't think there has been much take up since. The reason is cost. Most of the technical problems (including maintaining comparmentalisation and fire breaks) are solvable and it is very popular with tenants which councillors always like.

Using this tragedy to try and oust May and the Tories shows how low politics has sunk in this country, it completely disgusts me.

When you vote to remove and lower legislation on landlords, allow building materials to be used that are banned in other countries to be used because they're cheap, allow buildings not to be fitted with sprinklers and cut the fire service back to the bare bones, that completely disgusts me.

The cladding is widely used on high rise buildings throughout the world, including Australia where it was first identified that it posed a potential risk. If materials have been used that are non compliant with today's building regulations, we can still blame the Conservatives because one of them should have personally checked everything themselves of course, instead of assuming that anything passed by the relevant authorities is correct. May as well blame the weather on our present government, there are plenty who are quick to point the finger when they have absolutely no idea what has caused this tragedy, and none of us will for quite some time I imagine. As far as sprinklers are concerned, blame the Conservatives for this as well. The fact these blocks have been up for nearly half a century, and numerous governments have come and gone, blame the Conservatives anyway. It is not as if Labour could have been expected to insist on additional safety features when they were in power, only applies to Conservatives.

Some of the 'in denial' comments in this thread are astonishing.

Of course the Public Inquiry will have to look at everything and reach conclusions but some factors are surely known.

The fire spread quickly through or behind the new cladding that was put up last year. It followed a pattern seen in other recent fire disasters around the world. The type and composition of the cladding and the insulation panels behind it have been described and discussed in detail over the past day or so - all on the record. The smoke and toxic fumes also travelled very quickly through the building showing that internal fire stopping measures were missing or compromised - and it will be up to the Inquiry to determine when and how that happened. The council and contractors insist that everything they did to the block complied with current building and fire regulations. They could well be right - but that is one of the problems.

After the Lakanal House fire in 2009 when 6 died it took many months for the London Fire Brigade investigation to conclude - but that at least produced new fire safety guidance that was adopted by most landlords in the UK. Local fire services worked closely with landlords on their implementation programmes at the start - but much less so as staffing cuts hit from 2010. The Coroners Inquest was held up by years whilst the Met investigated potential criminal charges (and that finally took 8 years to conclude when Southwark council were fined). The Coroner made his recommendations in 2013 - 4 years ago. Several of them were rejected by government ministers and the key one to amend Building Regs to outlaw the use of cladding/insulation of the type used in Grenfell has been delayed and delayed for over 4 years with no progress at all. That is outrageous.

None of us know if lives would have been lost if the block hadn't been clad last year - but it seems clear that the cladding made the impact of the fire much worse, and that could have been avoided if government had taken the Coroner's findings after Lakanal seriously. They didn't, and they deserve all the criticism they're getting. That isn't cheap political point scoring or making up things to hit the Tories with - it is reflecting the massive frustration of the whole public housing sector after the last tragedy that was supposed to be the last.

denial of what....
one bunch of people saying hold on until we know..
another group who having no answers other than made up rubish for 2 months have all become experts in fires and its TMs personal fault.. this cladding {if it turns out to be the cladding } has been used by both tory and labour councils seemingly to reduce costs.

If that is correct then you have to look at Austerity cuts

Yes because then you can blame the evil Torys, as I understand it the money came from an environmental fund and one theory is green issues trumped saftey issues. Seems in the rush to blame Teressa May for all of this the victims have simply become pawns in a political blame game.

Jock, I don't think anything trumps health and safety. That said in this case common sense trumped the health and safety advice, they ignored the rules to stay put and 100's of people are alive this morning who wouldn't have been if they hadn't got out in the very early stages.

There's no compromise on health and safety spending, although I think its misguided a lot of the time. Nobody at this level would instruct on a project that needed to reflect savings in safety. Its taken as a given.

This will be a design or construction issue and probably both. There are huge cost issues with local authority budgets. The dash into " partnering 15 years ago " has delivered appalling value for money. I haven't worked with Rydon but I 've worked with most of the others in the south east at some point and most are shambles in spending terms. Interestingly some of those first into partnering all those years ago are now moving away fro it.

I agree H and S should be priority but as I understand it ( and I may well be wrong) this was about upscaling insulation and aesthetic issues rather than making the flats safer.

Sorry for duplicate posts. Not sure how that happened. Tried to edit to guess at costs of retrofitting sprinkler systems to 4,000+ housing blocks across UK. I think minimum of £400k based on pilot costs - maybe a lot more.

So 100 quid per household

Sorry for duplicate posts. Not sure how that happened. Tried to edit to guess at costs of retrofitting sprinkler systems to 4,000+ housing blocks across UK. I think minimum of £400k based on pilot costs - maybe a lot more.

So 100 quid per household

I think that a Dianne Abbott estimate.

Sorry for duplicate posts. Not sure how that happened. Tried to edit to guess at costs of retrofitting sprinkler systems to 4,000+ housing blocks across UK. I think minimum of £400k based on pilot costs - maybe a lot more.

So 100 quid per household

Whoops. Apologies. I'll pretend that was due to the 'k' being next to the 'm'. Try again: the probable cost of retrofitting sprinkler systems into the 4,000+ high rise housing blocks that government and media are quoting will be at least £400 million - maybe much more.

Sorry for duplicate posts. Not sure how that happened. Tried to edit to guess at costs of retrofitting sprinkler systems to 4,000+ housing blocks across UK. I think minimum of £400k based on pilot costs - maybe a lot more.

So 100 quid per household

Whoops. Apologies. I'll pretend that was due to the 'k' being next to the 'm'. Try again: the probable cost of retrofitting sprinkler systems into the 4,000+ high rise housing blocks that government and media are quoting will be at least £400 million - maybe much more.

Easily done, just ask Diane Abbott

Lot of people mentioning these blocks have been up a long time, yes they have but the cladding only put on last year

I hope that people serve some hard time for what has happened but I doubt we will see that happen

https://twitter.com/LondonFBU/status/875671688150736897

From London Fire Brigade Union and says

"Nobody has ever died in a fire in the UK in a property with an effective sprinkler system fitted. Grenfell Tower had no such system."


Should put an end to any argument regarding sprinklers.

https://twitter.com/LondonFBU/status/875671688150736897

From London Fire Brigade Union and says

"Nobody has ever died in a fire in the UK in a property with an effective sprinkler system fitted. Grenfell Tower had no such system."


Should put an end to any argument regarding sprinklers.

There are nine council owned high rise blocks in Cardiff, and they will be looking to install sprinkler systems into these properties following recent events. It has only been compulsory in Wales to install sprinkler systems in new builds since 2016. Apparently the cladding used in these Cardiff apartments is not the same as that used in Grenfell Tower, so hopefully this is a tragedy that can be avoided here in Cardiff.

https://twitter.com/LondonFBU/status/875671688150736897

From London Fire Brigade Union and says

"Nobody has ever died in a fire in the UK in a property with an effective sprinkler system fitted. Grenfell Tower had no such system."


Should put an end to any argument regarding sprinklers.

There are nine council owned high rise blocks in Cardiff, and they will be looking to install sprinkler systems into these properties following recent events. It has only been compulsory in Wales to install sprinkler systems in new builds since 2016. Apparently the cladding used in these Cardiff apartments is not the same as that used in Grenfell Tower, so hopefully this is a tragedy that can be avoided here in Cardiff.

Fingers crossed. This is a tragedy that should never ever happen again

A lot of victims will never be known due to the sheer volume of sub letting that occurs in our social housing, particularly in London. There will be Batafumbe's and Adeleke's very nervous right now in Lagos that there money is about to try up. They rent their London council houses out and live like Kings in Nigeria. The poor blighters they sublet too are likely to be undocumented and illegals and therefore far more unlikely to be reported missing.

I believe a lot of victims are not known because they have no passport and should not be in this country, there's 6/7 people in a 2 bed bedsit, the safety concerns are unreal, the government is at fault for it all, letting every fuker into this country and adding that shitty classing to those tower blocks.