Five years on, Grenfell Tower remains shrouded in plastic, a monument to tragedy and shame in one of the world’s richest cities. On June 14, 2017, a kitchen fire spread to the flammable cladding on the skyscraper’s exterior, turning it into what one witness described as a “matchstick”. Seventy-two people died and some 640,000 people are still living in buildings covered in Grenfell-style cladding.
The question on one placard in the aftermath was: “Why?” The definitive account of the Grenfell fire in today’s Sunday Times finally provides an answer.
Successive governments failed to ban aluminium composite material cladding used on Grenfell, even though it catastrophically failed a safety test in 2001. A loophole also meant that cladding with a highly flammable core could be used on high-rise buildings, provided it was coated with a thin fire-proof surface. Greedy materials companies — Arconic, Kingspan and Celotex — exploited the loophole and made misleading statements on the panels that fuelled the fire. Eric Pickles, housing secretary from 2010-15, put off a promised review of building rules after six died in a 2009 fire.
No Grenfell survivors have received compensation. If there is to be a shred of justice, the 94 per cent of dangerous flats whose defects are outstanding must be fixed. Michael Gove, the levelling up secretary, has put together £9.1 billion for repairs; now cladding manufacturers must be forced to pay too. Addressing the fire-safety problems that have imprisoned thousands of leaseholders in unsaleable properties since Grenfell would be a tiny redemption in a story that epitomises the worst of capitalism and government.
They shouldn’t have had to create legacy in the fucking first place. If there was ever a thing for the country to riot over, this being allowed to happen should have been it. We’re an appallingly weak and complacent peoples.
Or indeed, an end to the idea that industry can regulate itself.
Bit rich from the Times. That paper is written by Tories and conservative supporters. Same people who allow things like Grenfell to happen.
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Sunday June 12 2022, 12.01am, The Sunday Times
Five years on, Grenfell Tower remains shrouded in plastic, a monument to tragedy and shame in one of the world’s richest cities. On June 14, 2017, a kitchen fire spread to the flammable cladding on the skyscraper’s exterior, turning it into what one witness described as a “matchstick”. Seventy-two people died and some 640,000 people are still living in buildings covered in Grenfell-style cladding.
The question on one placard in the aftermath was: “Why?” The definitive account of the Grenfell fire in today’s Sunday Times finally provides an answer.
Successive governments failed to ban aluminium composite material cladding used on Grenfell, even though it catastrophically failed a safety test in 2001. A loophole also meant that cladding with a highly flammable core could be used on high-rise buildings, provided it was coated with a thin fire-proof surface. Greedy materials companies — Arconic, Kingspan and Celotex — exploited the loophole and made misleading statements on the panels that fuelled the fire. Eric Pickles, housing secretary from 2010-15, put off a promised review of building rules after six died in a 2009 fire.
No Grenfell survivors have received compensation. If there is to be a shred of justice, the 94 per cent of dangerous flats whose defects are outstanding must be fixed. Michael Gove, the levelling up secretary, has put together £9.1 billion for repairs; now cladding manufacturers must be forced to pay too. Addressing the fire-safety problems that have imprisoned thousands of leaseholders in unsaleable properties since Grenfell would be a tiny redemption in a story that epitomises the worst of capitalism and government.
They shouldn’t have had to create legacy in the fucking first place. If there was ever a thing for the country to riot over, this being allowed to happen should have been it. We’re an appallingly weak and complacent peoples.
Or indeed, an end to the idea that industry can regulate itself.
Bit rich from the Times. That paper is written by Tories and conservative supporters. Same people who allow things like Grenfell to happen.