Captain Haddock
- Location: Marlinspike Hall
- Registered: 8 Oct 2012
- Posts: 7,987
I am posting this without comment. This is a time stamped video/audio showing the development of the fire at Grenfell Tower submitted to the enquiry. Tragic.
https://www.grenfelltowerinquiry.org.uk/sites/default/files/documents/Professor%20Luke%20Bisby%20video.mp4Guest 1713 likes this
"We are living in very strange times, and they are likely to get a lot stranger before we bottom out"
Dr. Hunter S Thompson
howard mcsweeney1- Location: Dover
- Registered: 12 Mar 2008
- Posts: 62,352
I watched until about half way but found it too distressing to continue.
Jan Higgins
- Location: Dover
- Registered: 5 Jul 2010
- Posts: 13,822
Thank you Captain, I initially clicked on the thumbs up sign but then thought how can anyone 'like' seeing that tragedy unfold.
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I try to be neutral and polite but it is hard and getting even more difficult at times.
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Captain Haddock- Location: Marlinspike Hall
- Registered: 8 Oct 2012
- Posts: 7,987
Enough of the political fury: now for the full facts about Grenfell - from the Spectator
The opening of the Grenfell Tower Inquiry is good news. It will now become harder for politicians and campaigners to do as they did in the immediate aftermath of the disaster and exploit it for their own ends.
The 72 who died were not victims of an uncaring government bureaucracy, as some on the right have said. Nor was this about austerity and ‘Tory cuts’. The costs of the renovation which had been completed shortly before the fire worked out at more than £70,000 per flat: money had been spent, and an expensive deathtrap unwittingly created. The company which managed the block, the Kensington and Chelsea Tenant Management Organisation (TMO) was no heartless international corporation but a not-for-profit company set up with the express purpose of bringing management of social housing closer to the people who live in it.
Those who managed the block cannot be called uncaring. They were council tenants and local councillors — including, in the past, Emma Dent Coad, the Labour MP for Kensington. It was, or was supposed to be, exactly the sort of organisation involving local people and unsullied by shareholder’s demands which Jeremy Corbyn often advocates.
But no one is in any doubt that Grenfell was a catastrophic failure, and one of the most shameful episodes of modern British history. Those who died were in the care of the state — that is to say, in our collective care. The evidence heard so far reflects badly on many of the agencies and individuals involved, including councillors, contractors and fire service chiefs. What we have learned echoes many other disasters which have involved the heavy loss of life. The event, and in particular the scale of the casualties, was not the product of one failing but the result of an interaction of many and complex failings.
Take the issue of building regulations. Look what happens when you strip away red tape, went the argument — rules keep people safe, the lack of them kills. Yet people did not die at Grenfell for lack of building regulations, of which reams exist, growing by the year. The problem was more one of regulatory overload — in the mass of rules, simple things were overlooked. Basic points became hard to see. It seems astonishing now that anyone would even think of cladding a high-rise tower block with flammable material. When it was built in the relatively lightly regulated 1970s, the block purposely had a concrete exterior so that flames could not spread up the outside of the building. Yet when the block came to be refurbished, the demands of sound and noise insulation — perfectly legitimate in themselves — somehow came to obscure and trump concerns over fire.
Even so, it is extraordinary that no one, from architect to contractor, raised the issue of flammable cladding. The sheer number of architects, engineers, contractors, sub-contractors and inspectors who were involved is astonishing. Somehow, no single person had outright responsibility for how the building was refurbished.
Over the coming weeks the inquiry will turn over and over the decision of the Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, which owns Grenfell Tower, to refurbish the block. One issue that needs to be addressed is why money was spent on cosmetics, rather than safety. There seems to be a fundamental issue with a 24-storey block which has only one staircase. There was surely a strong case for spending very little money on the outside of the building until such time as it could be replaced with more satisfactory housing.
Then there is the role of the London Fire Brigade. Quite rightly, admiration is due to emergency workers who are prepared to rush towards danger when others are rushing away. Yet as Andrew O’Hagan argues in his lengthy piece in the London Review of Books, such admiration should not be allowed to cloud the failures of those supervising the rescue. In particular the advice to residents to stay put in their flats rather than attempt to escape. Such advice may have been apt in the case of previous, smaller, fires which can quickly be contained but as we have learned from the evidence presented to the inquiry, that advice was being issued long after the nature of the fire rendered it invalid.
Public inquiries have not had a good press in recent years. Too often they have been set up to serve a political purpose and have then dragged on for years without proper focus or an idea of what they are supposed to achieve. The Grenfell Inquiry presents an opportunity to salvage their reputation. Here, there is a very clear purpose: to establish exactly what happened on the night of 14 June last year, minute by minute, and to inform regulatory changes to ensure that the disaster is not repeated.
Each year, tens of millions travel by air: this is so safe because from the early years of aviation, every disaster has been followed by an investigation which painstakingly reconstructed the events and pointed towards what needed to be changed. It is time for the political fury around Grenfell to dissipate and for the full facts to be teased out. Understandable though the emotional response of the survivors, the victims’ families and the wider public is, it is only forensic analysis that is going to stop a repeat of this calamity.
Button likes this
"We are living in very strange times, and they are likely to get a lot stranger before we bottom out"
Dr. Hunter S Thompson
Guest 2656- Registered: 10 Jun 2018
- Posts: 2
Mark Anderson presently Director of Property at East Kent Housing, was directly involved in the cladding issue while he worked for Kensington & Chelsea Tenant Management Company as an Executive Director of of Assets & Regeneration during 2011 - late 2012. There have been serious failures in Fire Risks Assessments at EKH.
Mr Anderson in the minutes of the Grenfell Tower Regeneration Project minutes Page 17.
https://www.rbkc.gov.uk/idoxWAM/doc/Other-960664.pdf?extension=.pdf&id=960664&location=VOLUME2&contentType=application/pdf&pageCount=1Guest 1881- Registered: 16 Oct 2016
- Posts: 1,071
Nowhere is this better demonstrated than in our landlords failure to deal with a serious health and safety issue that recently developed at the entrance/exit to Grenfell Tower. This matter is of particular concern as there is only one entry and exit to Grenfell Tower during the Improvement Works and the potential for a fire to break out in the communal area on the walkway does not bear thinking about as residents would be trapped in the building with no way out! A post taken directly from the Grenfell Action Group
dated: 24-1-16
Source:
https://grenfellactiongroup.wordpress.com/2016/01/24/grenfell-tower-still-a-fire-risk/ Just because you don't take an interest in politics doesn't mean that politics won't take an interest in you. PERICLES.
Keith Sansum1
- Location: london
- Registered: 25 Aug 2010
- Posts: 23,865
it seems warning signals were sounded,,,,,,,,,
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Brian Dixon
- Location: Dover
- Registered: 23 Sep 2008
- Posts: 23,940
and ignored.
Keith Sansum1- Location: london
- Registered: 25 Aug 2010
- Posts: 23,865
sounds like it
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Captain Haddock- Location: Marlinspike Hall
- Registered: 8 Oct 2012
- Posts: 7,987
You couldn't make it up! The world has gone mad.
From CourtNewsUK:-
'Illegal immigrant who swindled £60,000 hotel stay claiming he was living in Grenfell Tower has case adjourned for 'Grenfell Trauma' psychology report' - even though he has never lived there'
"We are living in very strange times, and they are likely to get a lot stranger before we bottom out"
Dr. Hunter S Thompson
Jan Higgins- Location: Dover
- Registered: 5 Jul 2010
- Posts: 13,822
Where the courts and law is concerned nothing surprises me.
He should have been deported once his fraud was found out instead he continues to milk the system and it is allowed, no wonder we are thought of as a soft touch.
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I try to be neutral and polite but it is hard and getting even more difficult at times.
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Weird Granny Slater
- Location: Dover
- Registered: 7 Jun 2017
- Posts: 3,008
Captain Haddock wrote:You couldn't make it up!
You just did.
Sentencing adjourned, not case.
Guest 2890 likes this
'Pass the cow dung, my dropsy's killing me' - Heraclitus
howard mcsweeney1- Location: Dover
- Registered: 12 Mar 2008
- Posts: 62,352
Difficult to imagine anyone finding this amusing.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-46106224Brian Dixon- Location: Dover
- Registered: 23 Sep 2008
- Posts: 23,940
yeah absolutely disgusting.
Keith Sansum1- Location: london
- Registered: 25 Aug 2010
- Posts: 23,865
Hope they get seriously dealt with
As howard said I find it strange anyone would post such a post
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Jan Higgins- Location: Dover
- Registered: 5 Jul 2010
- Posts: 13,822
Infantile, stupid and extremely insensitive for all those who have been affected by that terrible event, how anyone could find that right or even remotely funny is beyond my comprehension.
Bob Whysman likes this
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I try to be neutral and polite but it is hard and getting even more difficult at times.
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Captain Haddock- Location: Marlinspike Hall
- Registered: 8 Oct 2012
- Posts: 7,987
"We are living in very strange times, and they are likely to get a lot stranger before we bottom out"
Dr. Hunter S Thompson
Keith Sansum1- Location: london
- Registered: 25 Aug 2010
- Posts: 23,865
Sad when people died
Bob Whysman likes this
ALL POSTS ARE MY OWN PERSONAL VIEWS
Alec Sheldon
- Location: Dover
- Registered: 18 Aug 2008
- Posts: 1,036
I wonder how many will be deported when they have served their sentences.?
Keith Sansum1- Location: london
- Registered: 25 Aug 2010
- Posts: 23,865
Those are scum
But what's more important is that any enquiry is open and honest and lessons learnt of any failures
And of course rectified
ALL POSTS ARE MY OWN PERSONAL VIEWS
