Haven’t seen anything on here about it so let me write a quick summary.
Grenfell Tower is a high rise block of flats in Kensington – which is a super rich borough. Grenfell Tower is a social housing complex. In other words, poor people live there.
At 1am this morning, Grenfell Tower caught fire. The fire started on the 2nd floor, and spread via the building’s cladding all the way up to the top, the 24th. The fire was still going long into the morning.
6 people are dead. 50 more are in hospital, 18 critical.
For years, residents in Grenfell Tower had been trying to get their landlord to make sure their homes weren’t a fire hazard. In a series of blog posts, they detail their struggle to get the landlord to acknowledge that the building was a fire hazard. Grenfell Tower had no internal fire alarms, no sprinklers, and only one exit. The landlord insisted this was adequate. The residents asked for an independent surveyor – they were refused. Their counsellor made 19 separate complaints – the landlord tried to have her removed from her post. The building had been refurbished, but none of the residents’ concerns were addressed. Instead, the building was covered in new plastic cladding. The contractors said that the cladding would make the 70s social housing block look more attractive from the neighbouring luxury flats. The new cladding also happened to be extremely cheap. And flammable.
Jeremy Corbyn tried to pass a bill that would force landlords to make their properties safe. The tories voted it down. The fire committee told Boris Johnson, the then-mayor of London, that they were worried about fire risks in housing – he told them to get stuffed. Literally. Theresa May’s aide sat in on a meeting about unsafe housing – nothing was done.
In one of their blog posts, the residents of Grenfell Tower say that they’re afraid that their concerns will be dismissed by their landlord until it’s too late. Until something terrible happens. Only then will their landlord think that maybe, MAYBE, the building was unsafe.
The company that built Grenfell Tower has deleted their webpage on the building.
You can donate here: http://just.ly/grenfell-tower-fire-fund
Please consider it if you can. These people have just been made homeless and have nothing now. They are unlikely to be insured.
Grenfell Tower
Published
The Paradox Machine 