Grenfell Tower fire in North Kensington - news and discussion

[cupid_stunt]

What a shit god awful thing to do Families walk out as Grenfell video shown
As if those poor people have not been through enough, then had the wounds opened, had salt rubbed in and now this.
How utterly shit can we make things for them. FFS

Total cock-up, that shouldn't have happened.

 

[teqniq]

 

[Jeff Robinson]

Powerful interview with survivor:

 

[teqniq]

Edit. I posted a direct link to the site publishing this but you have to be registered to read it unfortunately

 

[stethoscope]

The consultation submissions to the 2010 review of building regulations carried out by the coalition government show significant warnings were issued about the mounting risk from fire safety, seven years before 72 people were killed in the blaze at Grenfell Tower.

The documents were released after the intervention of the Information Commissioner, following a 10-month battle with the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG) who declined an original request in July last year.

The ministry only released 14 of the 54 submissions to the review – titled Future changes to Building Regulations – next steps – claiming the remaining 40 had been “deleted”.

The documents released contain calls for improved fire safety standards from three fire services, the Association of British Insurers (ABI) and other industry bodies.

In particular, the fire service responses warn of slipping standards in the building industry due in part to the rise of private-sector ‘approved inspectors’ (AIs), who are paid by developers to sign off buildings as compliant with regulations.

The Greater Manchester Fire and Rescue Services (GMFRS) raised concerns over what it described as “a culture within the construction industry of poor standards”.

It added: “This has led to established ‘stay put’ fire strategies being compromised through rapid fire and smoke spread.”

The review came at a time when the new government was committed to a programme of deregulation and cutting red tape.

Lord Andrew Stunell, the Liberal Democrat minister who carried out the review, told Inside Housing there was “pressure” to “minimise regulation” but denied it was a missed chance to prevent Grenfell.

The major warnings included:

Sprinklers

Shropshire and Staffordshire Fire and Rescue Services and the ABI all called for tougher regulations to install sprinklers.

Shropshire called for sprinklers to be included in new affordable homes, saying: “Many of these houses are likely to be occupied by some of those in our society most at risk to the effects of fire; as such we believe a unique opportunity presents itself.

“By incorporating fire suppression systems into the design and subsequent construction, we can ensure new homes are not only consistent with government policy but also safe for their occupants.”

Staffordshire added: “Substantial evidence exists to demonstrate the fact that sprinklers can be an effective and cost efficient method of greatly improving the fire safety of a building… Sprinklered buildings do not burn down and usually the fire is confined to the room (or very often area of the room) where the fire originated.”

The ABI called for “a wide-ranging review of the case for sprinklers and effective fire compartments in new buildings”, noting that building regulations could mandate sprinklers “where the risk to life may be greatest, for example in high rise buildings”.

Approved Inspectors

In 1985, Margaret Thatcher’s government part-privatised building control to allow private players, AIs, to compete with local authorities to sign buildings off as compliant.

GMFRS presented evidence of “AIs not issuing final certificates for occupied/completed projects under their supervision”. It said it believed at least 561 buildings in Greater Manchester had not been given certificates, and warned AIs were not properly inspecting projects they were reviewing. “[We do not] believe that AIs are fulfilling their commitment to maintain standards in construction,” it said.

Shropshire fire service echoed these concerns, saying it was difficult to ensure buildings inspected by AIs were safe, adding that this was “largely because the applicant has paid the approved inspector to sign off the building as compliant”.

Eight years later, Dame Judith Hackitt called for an overhaul of the AI system in her final report into the failures in the regulatory system that led to Grenfell.

The construction industry

The Passive Fire Protection Forum warned ministers of poor practices in construction. It said: “At all our meetings, and those of our member bodies concern is expressed at the lax attitude of general contractors to meeting the requirements of [Approved Document B].”

It warned that “fire safety is not a prime driver of design and tends to be neglected when it comes to procurement and construction”. The organisation gave the specific example of a building where fire doors only provided seven minutes resistance to flame, and warned “poor quality installation of many passive fire protection measures [is] endemic in the construction industry”.

GMFRS supported this view, saying: “GMFRS has experience of many domestic and non domestic premises being involved in fire and due to poor construction, not performing to the designed fire safety standard.

“This has led to established stay put fire strategies being compromised through rapid fire and smoke spread. Fire fighters are being put at significant risk where they expect a level of fire protection in a building of one or more hours, and this suddenly failing whilst they are in the building fighting a fire.”

Of the missing 40 responses, in its response toInside Housing’s Freedom of Infomation request MHCLG said that “we do not keep records indefinitely and in the usual course of events these would have been deleted by now”.

MHCLG was contacted for comment.

 

[teqniq]

stethoscope Thank you. Pretty damning stuff. I wonder whether it will result in any significant heads rolling though?

 

[Plumdaff]

Worth reading The Tower by Andrew O Hagan in this issue of the LRB. It's very long and in parts desperately painful to read. It's also challenging - I think he's a little too soft on the leading K&C councillors who were imo more complicit in the policies of austerity than he allows - but his wider arguments about the cynicism of national politician, the poor reporting of the disaster, the easy slide in our current politics into blaming and distaste for facts, and the blame really lying with the political culture of the last 30 years rather than individual councillors (whom it's rather more comfortable to scapegoat) are well made and hard to disagree with.

 

[mauvais]

Worth reading The Tower by Andrew O Hagan in this issue of the LRB. It's very long and in parts desperately painful to read. It's also challenging - I think he's a little too soft on the leading K&C councillors who were imo more complicit in the policies of austerity than he allows - but his wider arguments about the cynicism of national politician, the poor reporting of the disaster, the easy slide in our current politics into blaming and distaste for facts, and the blame really lying with the political culture of the last 30 years rather than individual councillors (whom it's rather more comfortable to scapegoat) are well made and hard to disagree with.

I've read this now - it took about an hour - and it does have some interesting things in it. I think as an account, it's probably quite insightful.

However its political thrust seems far more questionable. Principally, who does it actually criticise? Not many people at all really, but a few people in top level government, the construction industry in its ill-defined entirety, the fire service in a vague way, and then quite a lot of the time, activists and victims for their incoherent and messy rage.

 

[Plumdaff]

I've read this now - it took about an hour - and it does have some interesting things in it. I think as an account, it's probably quite insightful.

However its political thrust seems far more questionable. Principally, who does it actually criticise? Not many people at all really, but a few people in top level government, the construction industry in its ill-defined entirety, the fire service in a vague way, and then quite a lot of the time, activists and victims for their incoherent and messy rage.

I didn't feel there was any criticism of the victims. There was some criticism of some activists, both for bandwagon jumping and for not having facts to back up their assertions. I think he's too critical of the local activists, and doesn't seem to understand why they may have developed a kneejerk opposition to anything 'the council' proposes.

I think there's a real strength in the article saying the council did do stuff - that the countless social workers, housing staff etc that support people are 'the council' - I think he's soft on the main Tory councillors, but he's absolutely spot on that decisions on this cladding were made throughout the country by councils of all stripes and making bogeymen out of a couple of K&C councillors misses the larger problem; the deregulation and privatisation of safety, housing and the wider inequalities of our society. I think he's saying to the comfortable LRB reader - we're at fault, we're complicit, you can't just tut at the nasty Tories. And the fire brigade response failed because all the assumptions about what would be safe to do and advise were wrong - it wasn't safe to stay and await rescue - because of over 30 years of the hollowing of the state. I think it's fairly very damning of May and Javid who essentially threw K&C council under the bus even though - or likely because they knew that - national politicians were more culpable.

 

[Pickman's model]

I didn't feel there was any criticism of the victims. There was some criticism of some activists, both for bandwagon jumping and for not having facts to back up their assertions. I think he's too critical of the local activists, and doesn't seem to understand why they may have developed a kneejerk opposition to anything 'the council' proposes.

I think there's a real strength in the article saying the council did do stuff - that the countless social workers, housing staff etc that support people are 'the council' - I think he's soft on the main Tory councillors, but he's absolutely spot on that decisions on this cladding were made throughout the country by councils of all stripes and making bogeymen out of a couple of K&C councillors misses the larger problem; the deregulation and privatisation of safety, housing and the wider inequalities of our society. I think he's saying to the comfortable LRB reader - we're at fault, we're complicit, you can't just tut at the nasty Tories. And the fire brigade response failed because all the assumptions about what would be safe to do and advise were wrong - it wasn't safe to stay and await rescue - because of over 30 years of the hollowing of the state. I think it's fairly very damning of May and Javid who essentially threw K&C council under the bus even though - or likely because they knew that - national politicians were more culpable.

The simple thing is that in any tower block fire the design means people going down narrow stairs in smoke and confusion will likely lead to deaths. This has nothing to do with the hollowing of the state and everything to do with the design of tower blocks. Ime stairs in tower blocks are essentially chimneys with stairs and there's generally only one staircase. You will burn if it is blocked or filled with smoke.

 

[Plumdaff]

The simple thing is that in any tower block fire the design means people going down narrow stairs in smoke and confusion will likely lead to deaths. This has nothing to do with the hollowing of the state and everything to do with the design of tower blocks. Ime stairs in tower blocks are essentially chimneys with stairs and there's generally only one staircase. You will burn if it is blocked or filled with smoke.

That's precisely why the Fire Service told people to stay in their flats. However the situation at Grenfell was atypical - the cladding was unsafe and was sending fire up the building and into people's homes (and arguably the reason the cladding was unsafe had everything to do with the hollowing out of the state) - so the normal advice was wrong. However dangerous the stairs were, and they of course deteriorated during the fire, they were the only way to survive Grenfell. The fire service did eventually change their advice and tell people to flee, but for many this change came too late. People who had stayed in or returned to their flats on earlier Fire Service advice died. Worth reading the article which does cover this at length.

A tragic detail of the article is that the bin areas and shutes were sealed and were completely intact; no one was advised to nor took shelter in them.

 

[Pickman's model]

That's precisely why the Fire Service told people to stay in their flats. However the situation at Grenfell was atypical - the cladding was unsafe and was sending fire up the building and into people's homes (and arguably the reason the cladding was unsafe had everything to do with the hollowing out of the state) - so the normal advice was wrong. However dangerous the stairs were, and they of course deteriorated during the fire, they were the only way to survive Grenfell. People who stayed in or returned to their flats on Fire Service advice died. Worth reading the article which does cover this at length.

A tragic detail of the article is that the bin areas and shutes were sealed and were completely intact; no one was advised to nor took shelter in them.

I'm on phone so it's a pain going through long posts and deleting the extraneous bit you're not replying to. The design of tower blocks itself dangerous in any situation in which large numbers of people need to move quickly. Which ought to give pause to people approving large numbers of towers in London.

 

[FridgeMagnet]

I didn't feel there was any criticism of the victims. There was some criticism of some activists, both for bandwagon jumping and for not having facts to back up their assertions. I think he's too critical of the local activists, and doesn't seem to understand why they may have developed a kneejerk opposition to anything 'the council' proposes.

I think there's a real strength in the article saying the council did do stuff - that the countless social workers, housing staff etc that support people are 'the council' - I think he's soft on the main Tory councillors, but he's absolutely spot on that decisions on this cladding were made throughout the country by councils of all stripes and making bogeymen out of a couple of K&C councillors misses the larger problem; the deregulation and privatisation of safety, housing and the wider inequalities of our society. I think he's saying to the comfortable LRB reader - we're at fault, we're complicit, you can't just tut at the nasty Tories. And the fire brigade response failed because all the assumptions about what would be safe to do and advise were wrong - it wasn't safe to stay and await rescue - because of over 30 years of the hollowing of the state. I think it's fairly very damning of May and Javid who essentially threw K&C council under the bus even though - or likely because they knew that - national politicians were more culpable.

I agree with the details of your summary but I think I give different importance to the various parts. It started fine, and it was initially interesting to read about the council workers on the ground as I’d not heard an awful lot about that side, but it really started to grate as he repeatedly said that activists and locals were being irrational without further thought or examination, and when he started talking to patrician Tories with no indication that he was checking what they said let alone their record in other areas, saying how nice they were and how much they cared, I’m afraid I got really cross.

I went away from it feeling like it was designed to exonerate nice caring upper middle class people at the expense of the unfortunate but irrational victims (being taken advantage of by outside rabble-rousers of course). The liberal Tories I know would love it. Blaming big business and central government is an uncontroversial thing to do and it doesn’t even go into why that might have happened. Which is a shame because there is also good detail in there.

 

[Plumdaff]

I went away from it feeling like it was designed to exonerate nice caring upper middle class people at the expense of the unfortunate but irrational victims (being taken advantage of by outside rabble-rousers of course). The liberal Tories I know would love it. Blaming big business and central government is an uncontroversial thing to do and it doesn’t even go into why that might have happened. Which is a shame because there is also good detail in there.

I can't disagree with that really. The bits about the good old Etonians who built the estate did stick in the craw.

 

[FridgeMagnet]

Response by one of the people involved btw:

 

[Arbeter Fraynd]

The LRB article is pretty awful. There's more sympathy for the Tory councillors than almost anyone else. The personal stuff about the victims in the first section was really well written and moving, had me in tears at one point, but after that the article becomes mainly about how wonderful and misunderstood the council were. Local activists and demonstrations are dismissed several times. I'm sure he's right about how arrogant and manipulative the likes of May and Javid were, but I'm amazed the LRB chose to give over almost a complete edition to an article that so consistently missed the point and spent so much energy defending tories

 

[gosub]

Its very shocking stuff, Celotex are one of the biggest names in insulation if this is true than its corporate manslaughter for my mind. The thing is (and I've also yet to watch the program) British Standards are quite explicit that external insulation used on buildings above 12m in height should be non combustible. Putting a flame retardant additive into your product makes it simply flame retardant, it is still combustible. Its like the stuff they put on sofas or tents, all it means is that it will self extinguish unless in constant contact with the source of the fire.

To my mind there is no way Celotex should have been used on this building regardless of which version and this is before we even get to the cladding. I said right at the start of this thread that so many people would have turned a blind eye to what was being proposed for this project, disgusting and and a total dereliction of their professional and moral duty.

Agreed. Can't see how there won't be jail time and corperate manslaughter charges at the end of this

 

[agricola]

I agree with the details of your summary but I think I give different importance to the various parts. It started fine, and it was initially interesting to read about the council workers on the ground as I’d not heard an awful lot about that side, but it really started to grate as he repeatedly said that activists and locals were being irrational without further thought or examination, and when he started talking to patrician Tories with no indication that he was checking what they said let alone their record in other areas, saying how nice they were and how much they cared, I’m afraid I got really cross.

I went away from it feeling like it was designed to exonerate nice caring upper middle class people at the expense of the unfortunate but irrational victims (being taken advantage of by outside rabble-rousers of course). The liberal Tories I know would love it. Blaming big business and central government is an uncontroversial thing to do and it doesn’t even go into why that might have happened. Which is a shame because there is also good detail in there.

The thing that does my head in most about it is that 99% of the "but the council did this" things he mentions were (a) done by lower-level staff and (b) are precisely what they are meant to do after a disaster anyway; wheras nearly everything where someone senior at RKBC was required to make a decision went wrong.

 

[FridgeMagnet]

The thing that does my head in most about it is that 99% of the "but the council did this" things he mentions were (a) done by lower-level staff and (b) are precisely what they are meant to do after a disaster anyway; wheras nearly everything where someone senior at RKBC was required to make a decision went wrong.

Yes, it felt really dishonest the way he segued from folk working on the ground to middle and upper management, carrying on the idea that “the council” as a whole was unappreciated - when it was quite clear that people made a distinction between “the council” as a body and the workers they saw alongside them, in fact barely thinking of the latter as part of the former. And then he had the cheek to imply this viewpoint was irrational.

 

[billbond]

Agreed. Can't see how there won't be jail time and corperate manslaughter charges at the end of this

Nothing will happen like that
Look at Hillsborough , nobody been jailed as far as i know

 

[Pickman's model]

Agreed. Can't see how there won't be jail time and corperate manslaughter charges at the end of this

I can

 

[Brainaddict]

The LRB piece is really odd and not what I would expect from them. I don't know much about O'Hagan but have read him previously in the LRB and thought he was ok. Thing is, there are some correctives to the initial narrative that are worth look at. Was K&C council more negligent of poorer residents than other councils? Probably not, is my sense. The narrative of blaming the council probably did let the central government off the hook too easily. The idea that the council was absent in the response has been over-egged, even if the coordination wasn't done well. And I'd even admit that there are times when angry activists should be pressed to give more facts to back up their accusations.

But the whole tone of the piece is pretty shocking really. So unsympathetic to local activists, so sympathetic to Tory councillors. He even asks why people are angry with Tories for acting like Tories. What kind of fucking question is that? So this could have been the article to usefully question some of the narratives around Grenfell, but it isn't that, because it so badly misjudges things in terms of cutting lots of slack to people with power, while being really harsh on people who have been screwed over. It's odd not just from the writer but as a major editorial decision from the LRB.

 

[Pickman's model]

The LRB piece is really odd and not what I would expect from them. I don't know much about O'Hagan but have read him previously in the LRB and thought he was ok. Thing is, there are some correctives to the initial narrative that are worth look at. Was K&C council more negligent of poorer residents than other councils? Probably not, is my sense. The narrative of blaming the council probably did let the central government off the hook too easily. The idea that the council was absent in the response has been over-egged, even if the coordination wasn't done well. And I'd even admit that there are times when angry activists should be pressed to give more facts to back up their accusations.

But the whole tone of the piece is pretty shocking really. So unsympathetic to local activists, so sympathetic to Tory councillors. He even asks why people are angry with Tories for acting like Tories. What kind of fucking question is that? So this could have been the article to usefully question some of the narratives around Grenfell, but it isn't that, because it so badly misjudges things in terms of cutting lots of slack to people with power, while being really harsh on people who have been screwed over. It's odd not just from the writer but as a major editorial decision from the LRB.

i thought he was quite clever starting the article (more short book or pamphlet) the way he did as it's a long auld read before you get to anything truly peculiar. my belief is that they simply hadn't read it all the way through: cock up not conspiracy

incidentally, it's not only angry activists who should be pressed to give evidence to support their case.

 

[Teaboy]

Nothing will happen like that
Look at Hillsborough , nobody been jailed as far as i know

My feeling why this could be different is that Hillsborough was very much about the state, it was a direct result of the attitude of the government at the time and whilst there were a couple of private companies involved it was really all about state apparatus and as such we had a massive cover-up.

With Grenfell there are clearly things that can be laid be laid at the door of the government and the local Council but to put it simply they reason the block went up like kindling is because of a deeply flawed construction project. For years various industries have argued for light touch regulation, construction is still mainly a self-regulating industry. What we have seen here is a load of private companies flagrantly ignoring regulations and best practice to maximise the return from the project. If this isn't corporate manslaughter then I don't know what is and far from the government wanting to cover it all up they should have a vested interest in exposing the malpractice.

 

[Brainaddict]

If this isn't corporate manslaughter then I don't know what is and far from the government wanting to cover it all up they should have a vested interest in exposing the malpractice.

But if it is about flawed construction projects, it wasn't just one, it was hundreds. When lots of companies were doing the same thing, and the government ignored warnings about it, the government is at fault too - and will try to evade responsibility.

 

[Idris2002]

The LRB piece is really odd and not what I would expect from them. I don't know much about O'Hagan but have read him previously in the LRB and thought he was ok. Thing is, there are some correctives to the initial narrative that are worth look at. Was K&C council more negligent of poorer residents than other councils? Probably not, is my sense. The narrative of blaming the council probably did let the central government off the hook too easily. The idea that the council was absent in the response has been over-egged, even if the coordination wasn't done well. And I'd even admit that there are times when angry activists should be pressed to give more facts to back up their accusations.

But the whole tone of the piece is pretty shocking really. So unsympathetic to local activists, so sympathetic to Tory councillors. He even asks why people are angry with Tories for acting like Tories. What kind of fucking question is that? So this could have been the article to usefully question some of the narratives around Grenfell, but it isn't that, because it so badly misjudges things in terms of cutting lots of slack to people with power, while being really harsh on people who have been screwed over. It's odd not just from the writer but as a major editorial decision from the LRB.

O'Hagan wrote a novel called "Our Fathers" years ago in which one of the main characters is "Scotland's Mr. Housing", who is presented as contemptible for pushing for tower blocks and their manifest ills. The way I remember it, he (E2A: O'Hagan) was driven by a general opposition to public housing as such, and not just in the flawed form it took in the tower block era.

 

[Teaboy]

But if it is about flawed construction projects, it wasn't just one, it was hundreds. When lots of companies were doing the same thing, and the government ignored warnings about it, the government is at fault too - and will try to evade responsibility.

For sure the government is culpable for various factors but I'm not sure about the hundreds of flawed projects. How many had this combination of insulation, cladding and original substrate? I am in no doubt that had building regs been followed this wouldn't have happened. Building regs were certainly inadequate and the lack of sprinklers in UK buildings is a worry but this project should never have been completed in this way.

Had they used the insulation that should have been used on this building (Rockwool) and I strongly believed this fire could have been contained even with the cladding being used.

 

[teuchter]

I'm on phone so it's a pain going through long posts and deleting the extraneous bit you're not replying to. The design of tower blocks itself dangerous in any situation in which large numbers of people need to move quickly. Which ought to give pause to people approving large numbers of towers in London.

What are you actually saying - that we should not have any 'towers' at all? What are your criteria for what is safe enough and what is not?

 

[Pickman's model]

What are you actually saying - that we should not have any 'towers' at all? What are your criteria for what is safe enough and what is not?

you really are stupid. no, i am not saying we should not have any towers. i am saying that the ones we do have are in the main, certainly the ones i've been in, sufficiently badly designed to make mass evacuation extremely dangerous. my criteria for what is safe enough would include two staircases at a minimum with points within the stairwell which can be blocked off - through doors - so that any fire within the stairwell can be prevented from engulfing the entire thing. as a librarian and not an architect i cannot offer you the comprehensive list you desire.

 

[teuchter]

you really are stupid. no, i am not saying we should not have any towers. i am saying that the ones we do have are in the main, certainly the ones i've been in, sufficiently badly designed to make mass evacuation extremely dangerous. my criteria for what is safe enough would include two staircases at a minimum with points within the stairwell which can be blocked off - through doors - so that any fire within the stairwell can be prevented from engulfing the entire thing. as a librarian and not an architect i cannot offer you the comprehensive list you desire.

Is your proposal that your two staircase rule would be applied to existing buildings as well as new ones? And that it is a blanket requirement for all high rise buildings, ie. can not be supplanted with fire-engineered solutions in any situation?