Let us put sprinklers in all high rise buildings now so people can sleep safely. The point I was making is there is already a report reccomending that. It could just as easily have been a Labour government sitting on it - but let's not get defensive and do something instead.
There has to be some kind of cost-benefit analysis with any spending decision - no amount of money can reduce life's risks to zero.
It seems fairly likely to my untrained eye that a sprinkler system would have been useless given the ferocity of this fire and thus the problem lay elsewhere (seemingly in the building design).
Perhaps the sprinklers could be designed to come on *before* the block turns into an inferno?
On that basis every time there is a small controllable fire in one flat the entire building would be submerged in water as a precaution.
Yes, that's right. In the same way that when you turn the tap on in your kitchen sink, every tap in the house goes on.
Unless... the sprinklers could be designed to come on only in the area in which there is smoke and heat detected?
(By the way, how did your argument switch so seamlessly from "the ferocity of this fire" to "small controllable fire"? You could try to use one of those as an argument against sprinklers, but not both, surely).
On the basis that it seems the (ferocious) fire rapidly spread (from its presumably small beginnings) up the outside of the building (taking everything close to the windows with it) and not via the interior where the sprinklers would have been.
Anyhow we are all speculating that the cladding was to blame before it's been proven - however if it was the cladding then we are going to quickly discover that thousands of privately-owned buildings are also at the same severe risk, which puts to bed the highly politicised argument that no-one bothered about these people because they were poor.
We are not *all* speculating on the cladding being to blame.
Some are considering that the lack of sprinklers might have contributed. Or the lack of fire alarms. Or the lack of lighting in the fire escapes.
The fact that other people might have the same cladding does not absolve the council of the responsibility for the deaths of innocent people they had a duty of care over.
The lack of fire alarms or insufficient lighting in the stairwells don't help explain why the fire spread so quickly.
On a slightly related point, there seems to be some implication that councils try to do things on the cheap but private developers/residents don't but it may well be more the other way around (as those who have lived in private blocks of flats might acknowledge).
The lack of fire alarms or insufficient lighting *might* have contributed to people losing their lives.
I hope people aren't being persuaded that there are more important things to consider than people dying in their own homes.
Let us put sprinklers in all high rise buildings now so people can sleep safely. The point I was making is there is already a report reccomending that. It could just as easily have been a Labour government sitting on it - but let's not get defensive and do something instead.
There has to be some kind of cost-benefit analysis with any spending decision - no amount of money can reduce life's risks to zero.
It seems fairly likely to my untrained eye that a sprinkler system would have been useless given the ferocity of this fire and thus the problem lay elsewhere (seemingly in the building design).
Perhaps the sprinklers could be designed to come on *before* the block turns into an inferno?
On that basis every time there is a small controllable fire in one flat the entire building would be submerged in water as a precaution.
Yes, that's right. In the same way that when you turn the tap on in your kitchen sink, every tap in the house goes on.
Unless... the sprinklers could be designed to come on only in the area in which there is smoke and heat detected?
(By the way, how did your argument switch so seamlessly from "the ferocity of this fire" to "small controllable fire"? You could try to use one of those as an argument against sprinklers, but not both, surely).
On the basis that it seems the (ferocious) fire rapidly spread (from its presumably small beginnings) up the outside of the building (taking everything close to the windows with it) and not via the interior where the sprinklers would have been.
Anyhow we are all speculating that the cladding was to blame before it's been proven - however if it was the cladding then we are going to quickly discover that thousands of privately-owned buildings are also at the same severe risk, which puts to bed the highly politicised argument that no-one bothered about these people because they were poor.
We are not *all* speculating on the cladding being to blame.
Some are considering that the lack of sprinklers might have contributed. Or the lack of fire alarms. Or the lack of lighting in the fire escapes.
The fact that other people might have the same cladding does not absolve the council of the responsibility for the deaths of innocent people they had a duty of care over.
The lack of fire alarms or insufficient lighting in the stairwells don't help explain why the fire spread so quickly.
On a slightly related point, there seems to be some implication that councils try to do things on the cheap but private developers/residents don't but it may well be more the other way around (as those who have lived in private blocks of flats might acknowledge).
The lack of fire alarms or insufficient lighting *might* have contributed to people losing their lives.
I hope people aren't being persuaded that there are more important things to consider than people dying in their own homes.
im in no way saying that but councils do have budgets which they have to stick to, and the value of 10 million to knock down and rebuild 120 flats is well out imo.
My cousin works the LFB and is good friends with her. Nobody has a bad word to say about her.
True. The lads and lasses at my station rate her highly,as i do
When I was based at Eltham she was stn. Commander at Lee Green and used to visit Eltham fire station regularly. A very likable person and very good at her job I don't know anyone who has served with her who will disagree with me
Let us put sprinklers in all high rise buildings now so people can sleep safely. The point I was making is there is already a report reccomending that. It could just as easily have been a Labour government sitting on it - but let's not get defensive and do something instead.
There has to be some kind of cost-benefit analysis with any spending decision - no amount of money can reduce life's risks to zero.
It seems fairly likely to my untrained eye that a sprinkler system would have been useless given the ferocity of this fire and thus the problem lay elsewhere (seemingly in the building design).
Perhaps the sprinklers could be designed to come on *before* the block turns into an inferno?
On that basis every time there is a small controllable fire in one flat the entire building would be submerged in water as a precaution.
Yes, that's right. In the same way that when you turn the tap on in your kitchen sink, every tap in the house goes on.
Unless... the sprinklers could be designed to come on only in the area in which there is smoke and heat detected?
(By the way, how did your argument switch so seamlessly from "the ferocity of this fire" to "small controllable fire"? You could try to use one of those as an argument against sprinklers, but not both, surely).
On the basis that it seems the (ferocious) fire rapidly spread (from its presumably small beginnings) up the outside of the building (taking everything close to the windows with it) and not via the interior where the sprinklers would have been.
Anyhow we are all speculating that the cladding was to blame before it's been proven - however if it was the cladding then we are going to quickly discover that thousands of privately-owned buildings are also at the same severe risk, which puts to bed the highly politicised argument that no-one bothered about these people because they were poor.
We are not *all* speculating on the cladding being to blame.
Some are considering that the lack of sprinklers might have contributed. Or the lack of fire alarms. Or the lack of lighting in the fire escapes.
The fact that other people might have the same cladding does not absolve the council of the responsibility for the deaths of innocent people they had a duty of care over.
The lack of fire alarms or insufficient lighting in the stairwells don't help explain why the fire spread so quickly.
On a slightly related point, there seems to be some implication that councils try to do things on the cheap but private developers/residents don't but it may well be more the other way around (as those who have lived in private blocks of flats might acknowledge).
The lack of fire alarms or insufficient lighting *might* have contributed to people losing their lives.
I hope people aren't being persuaded that there are more important things to consider than people dying in their own homes.
im in no way saying that but councils do have budgets which they have to stick to, and the value of 10 million to knock down and rebuild 120 flats is well out imo.
Would it be better to fund newly-built, well-designed, safe flats; or store people in a dangerous tinderbox?
I have a query for those that may be more knowledgable in this subject. If it's the cladding, who's responsibility does this fall under? I appreciate every contract/build is probably got an individual chain of accountability/responsibility, but generally who would take responsibility for this? The manufacturer
My view is that is should be perfectly safe to live in a high rise block in 2017. In the same way that is perfectly safe to work in high rise buildings or stay in a hotel within The Shard. The safety standards have to be exactly the same of course in all - the cheapest and the most luxurious. Safety isn't something money should buy. I'm sure as a result of this, it will no longer be the case. But innocent people have been sacrificed for this basic forward step.
Let us put sprinklers in all high rise buildings now so people can sleep safely. The point I was making is there is already a report reccomending that. It could just as easily have been a Labour government sitting on it - but let's not get defensive and do something instead.
There has to be some kind of cost-benefit analysis with any spending decision - no amount of money can reduce life's risks to zero.
It seems fairly likely to my untrained eye that a sprinkler system would have been useless given the ferocity of this fire and thus the problem lay elsewhere (seemingly in the building design).
Perhaps the sprinklers could be designed to come on *before* the block turns into an inferno?
On that basis every time there is a small controllable fire in one flat the entire building would be submerged in water as a precaution.
Yes, that's right. In the same way that when you turn the tap on in your kitchen sink, every tap in the house goes on.
Unless... the sprinklers could be designed to come on only in the area in which there is smoke and heat detected?
(By the way, how did your argument switch so seamlessly from "the ferocity of this fire" to "small controllable fire"? You could try to use one of those as an argument against sprinklers, but not both, surely).
On the basis that it seems the (ferocious) fire rapidly spread (from its presumably small beginnings) up the outside of the building (taking everything close to the windows with it) and not via the interior where the sprinklers would have been.
Anyhow we are all speculating that the cladding was to blame before it's been proven - however if it was the cladding then we are going to quickly discover that thousands of privately-owned buildings are also at the same severe risk, which puts to bed the highly politicised argument that no-one bothered about these people because they were poor.
We are not *all* speculating on the cladding being to blame.
Some are considering that the lack of sprinklers might have contributed. Or the lack of fire alarms. Or the lack of lighting in the fire escapes.
The fact that other people might have the same cladding does not absolve the council of the responsibility for the deaths of innocent people they had a duty of care over.
The lack of fire alarms or insufficient lighting in the stairwells don't help explain why the fire spread so quickly.
On a slightly related point, there seems to be some implication that councils try to do things on the cheap but private developers/residents don't but it may well be more the other way around (as those who have lived in private blocks of flats might acknowledge).
The lack of fire alarms or insufficient lighting *might* have contributed to people losing their lives.
I hope people aren't being persuaded that there are more important things to consider than people dying in their own homes.
im in no way saying that but councils do have budgets which they have to stick to, and the value of 10 million to knock down and rebuild 120 flats is well out imo.
Would it be better to fund newly-built, well-designed, safe flats; or store people in a dangerous tinderbox?
of course build new but imo i think your looking at a difference of about 70-80 million between the 2 options.
Also hearing that some displaced families are in hotels and haven't been told if they can stay there. They have to be told they can stay there until there situation is reviewed with them and resolved. They have lost everything and will be traumatised - we have to ensure they are looked after.
The building insurers will be responsible for the alternative accommodation (cost) assuming the council take that level of insurance. They are insured by a Norwegian company Protector, I expect they will if they haven't already appoint someone local to deal with that. There may be a blanket contents cover but more likely that was left to each individual so they may well need additional assistance.
As an aside, the management company seems to be owned by the residents/tenants themselves with the majority of the board made up by them (obviously funding is from the council).
Well it needs to happen now - the families need all the support and security they can be given now
Agreed, assuming the council insure for it I'd be amazed if someone wasn't on the ground planning by midday yesterday, if they don't then the council should be planning (they should have a catastrophe plan in place that kicks in), the simplest and what usually happens is they book out a hotel for 3-4 weeks initially, I'm sure they will but it won't necessarily be in the immediate vicinity or where they were initially placed.
My understanding is there were a number of owned flats although I would still expect they were insured (for buildings) on the blanket policy.
Possessions are a different matter of course and insurance will be down to each individual so in time additional assistance may be needed if people didn't insure to help them rebuild.
were some privately owned? If not then that is of a very high standard for a council place I would have thought
In many council blocks (particularly in West London) there will be number of 'right to buy' privately owned flats that will have been sold on and/or rented out.
depends on the lease if the lease is a Fully Repairing Lease then its the company/person who signed the lease not the landlord.
Something that peeps who are in high rise buildings owned by an LA can do. Ask the LA for the most recent Fire Risk Assessment--- you wont get it so make sure u CC in the Leader of the Councils Opposition(Labour or Tory) they will make it an issue. If you are in a Residents Group and your able to get your own done its aprox £400.
The FRA use to be called the Fire Certificate which was undertaken by the Fire Brigade now its down to who "owns" the building to get it done by a consultant. As said before the ownership of the remedial actions is the biggest issue.
Just a point in my 3 years with a LA the worst by far for non compliance were schools . We found that they were aprox only 15% compliant to ANY statutory H+S legislation. What started the review ? A Head Teacher moaning that the LA was charging to much to get her fire doors replaced --she got the job done her self at a fraction of the cost --- only thing was they were MDF !! and not fire doors all had to be changed--- resulting in a full review.
Austerity ? im sure its playing its part but 20 years of de regulation and over complication at the micro level with H+S has all played a role.
Let us put sprinklers in all high rise buildings now so people can sleep safely. The point I was making is there is already a report reccomending that. It could just as easily have been a Labour government sitting on it - but let's not get defensive and do something instead.
There has to be some kind of cost-benefit analysis with any spending decision - no amount of money can reduce life's risks to zero.
It seems fairly likely to my untrained eye that a sprinkler system would have been useless given the ferocity of this fire and thus the problem lay elsewhere (seemingly in the building design).
Perhaps the sprinklers could be designed to come on *before* the block turns into an inferno?
On that basis every time there is a small controllable fire in one flat the entire building would be submerged in water as a precaution.
Yes, that's right. In the same way that when you turn the tap on in your kitchen sink, every tap in the house goes on.
Unless... the sprinklers could be designed to come on only in the area in which there is smoke and heat detected?
(By the way, how did your argument switch so seamlessly from "the ferocity of this fire" to "small controllable fire"? You could try to use one of those as an argument against sprinklers, but not both, surely).
On the basis that it seems the (ferocious) fire rapidly spread (from its presumably small beginnings) up the outside of the building (taking everything close to the windows with it) and not via the interior where the sprinklers would have been.
Anyhow we are all speculating that the cladding was to blame before it's been proven - however if it was the cladding then we are going to quickly discover that thousands of privately-owned buildings are also at the same severe risk, which puts to bed the highly politicised argument that no-one bothered about these people because they were poor.
We are not *all* speculating on the cladding being to blame.
Some are considering that the lack of sprinklers might have contributed. Or the lack of fire alarms. Or the lack of lighting in the fire escapes.
The fact that other people might have the same cladding does not absolve the council of the responsibility for the deaths of innocent people they had a duty of care over.
The lack of fire alarms or insufficient lighting in the stairwells don't help explain why the fire spread so quickly.
On a slightly related point, there seems to be some implication that councils try to do things on the cheap but private developers/residents don't but it may well be more the other way around (as those who have lived in private blocks of flats might acknowledge).
The lack of fire alarms or insufficient lighting *might* have contributed to people losing their lives.
I hope people aren't being persuaded that there are more important things to consider than people dying in their own homes.
im in no way saying that but councils do have budgets which they have to stick to, and the value of 10 million to knock down and rebuild 120 flats is well out imo.
Would it be better to fund newly-built, well-designed, safe flats; or store people in a dangerous tinderbox?
of course build new but imo i think your looking at a difference of about 70-80 million between the 2 options.
I can't see it being that much. Based on latest price per square metre property prices in London, the retails price of that block would be about £88 million. Now the council already own the land, so you can wipe a big chunk of that off, and obviously the building price is a lot lower than the retail price. So it comes down to how mucha difference is acceptable. With the council already owning the land I can't see how the building costs would be more than £10-£20 million.
Turns out I'm wrong, this link has fairly details costings on a high-rise development, obivously all developments will have different costs, but from that I'd estimate around £50 million + demolition and site clearing costs, so it becomes understandable why the refurb was happening. Of course better initial design would have avoided many of the issues and costs with the refurb. http://www.building.co.uk/cost-model-tall-buildings/5067937.article
This whole tragedy is very political, though I don't think it is about party point-scoring, it is about how we behave as a society. I think this sort of thing has been going on too long under both main parties. I'm waiting for someone to pop up with a joke about "elf n safety" and how regulation is a bad thing and stifles enterprise.
For all those saying it's terrible that the council went for the cheapest contractor - if they hadn't, the Taxpayers Alliance and press would have been on at them for being wasteful. The concerns of the residents could be ignored, but the concerns of the media rarely are. The block will probably be demolished - and the survivors told they have to move to Luton or Grimsby or Coventry because people earning what they earn can't afford to live in the impoverished pocket of the richest borough in England. People will agree, after all, they couldn't afford to live there either.
Our priorities as a country are all "the devil take the hindmost", even if we sympathise, we are thankful it is not us.
The Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea apparently has the most empty properties in the UK. More empty homes than some dismal northern town with no jobs since the mills and mines all shut down.
We as a country are "intensely relaxed" about the extremely rich and how our whole city is skewed to their priorities. Major developments are meant to either have a social housing element to them or pay something towards them. Westminster council lets most developers off with a fraction of what they should pay because they don't really want poor people living there. I'd be surprised if K&C doesn't as well.
I live in Lewisham, the centre of which is now dominated by high rise towers. They all have cladding and my suspicion is that in 10 years time they will all look terrible. They are very close together and it is not a nice development. Lots of them appear to be empty, which is just as well as no additional schools or doctors surgeries were built to accommodate them. As most of them were aimed at the wealthy, I can only assume they were built to a better standard, but who knows?
I'm very angry about this. At heart, politics is about how we allocate resources as a society. It gets expressed in ways that are often tribal and point-scoring and I can understand people feeling uncomfortable about that. But to me, the questions that flow from this awful tragedy are: why did it happen? how can we stop it happening again? what's stopping us? and only a very last "who's to blame?" - because that last question will focus on someone working for the TMO or the contractor, and leave the structures that enabled them intact.
It really boils down to a fairly simple question......was the building considered a serious fire risk 'before' the re-fit.....because it certainly became one 'after' the re-fit. Therein probably lies the most significant proportion of blame as to those responsible. I know I'm stating the bloody obvious but sometimes the simplicity of a particular piece of the puzzle is what really needs to be focused on.....and in MHO that is it, without going off at tangents, as much of the media seem to be doing at present.
Let us put sprinklers in all high rise buildings now so people can sleep safely. The point I was making is there is already a report reccomending that. It could just as easily have been a Labour government sitting on it - but let's not get defensive and do something instead.
There has to be some kind of cost-benefit analysis with any spending decision - no amount of money can reduce life's risks to zero.
It seems fairly likely to my untrained eye that a sprinkler system would have been useless given the ferocity of this fire and thus the problem lay elsewhere (seemingly in the building design).
Perhaps the sprinklers could be designed to come on *before* the block turns into an inferno?
On that basis every time there is a small controllable fire in one flat the entire building would be submerged in water as a precaution.
Yes, that's right. In the same way that when you turn the tap on in your kitchen sink, every tap in the house goes on.
Unless... the sprinklers could be designed to come on only in the area in which there is smoke and heat detected?
(By the way, how did your argument switch so seamlessly from "the ferocity of this fire" to "small controllable fire"? You could try to use one of those as an argument against sprinklers, but not both, surely).
On the basis that it seems the (ferocious) fire rapidly spread (from its presumably small beginnings) up the outside of the building (taking everything close to the windows with it) and not via the interior where the sprinklers would have been.
Anyhow we are all speculating that the cladding was to blame before it's been proven - however if it was the cladding then we are going to quickly discover that thousands of privately-owned buildings are also at the same severe risk, which puts to bed the highly politicised argument that no-one bothered about these people because they were poor.
We are not *all* speculating on the cladding being to blame.
Some are considering that the lack of sprinklers might have contributed. Or the lack of fire alarms. Or the lack of lighting in the fire escapes.
The fact that other people might have the same cladding does not absolve the council of the responsibility for the deaths of innocent people they had a duty of care over.
The lack of fire alarms or insufficient lighting in the stairwells don't help explain why the fire spread so quickly.
On a slightly related point, there seems to be some implication that councils try to do things on the cheap but private developers/residents don't but it may well be more the other way around (as those who have lived in private blocks of flats might acknowledge).
The lack of fire alarms or insufficient lighting *might* have contributed to people losing their lives.
I hope people aren't being persuaded that there are more important things to consider than people dying in their own homes.
im in no way saying that but councils do have budgets which they have to stick to, and the value of 10 million to knock down and rebuild 120 flats is well out imo.
Would it be better to fund newly-built, well-designed, safe flats; or store people in a dangerous tinderbox?
of course build new but imo i think your looking at a difference of about 70-80 million between the 2 options.
I don't think £80m for construction costs is anything like the cost it would be. That's two-thirds of a million pounds per unit.
But even if it were that cost, it would still be far, far less of a cost than the 17+ people who have paid for bad decisions with their lives.
Time, cost and quality are the three things that should drive a project. In the case of people's homes, the latter is far more important than the other two.
I think this is a good point - we all seem to have a decent idea how the fire started - an exploding refrigerator - How it spread so quickly and viciously - no sprinkler system to loacalise the fire and the external cladding of the building. We also know there are serious question marks about there being no building alarm and the advice given to residents which looks like it has cost lives. Whilst I understand that an enquiry is needed, I would be amazed if these things are not the case. We have enough information to act now, because there is a report which has been in parliament since 2013 that needs to be actioned as a matter of urgency.
We need to be able to re-assure people who live in high rise blocks as quickly as possible and we need to go after those who were responsible. Of course nobody will have wanted thi sto happen, but we also know concerns were raised and overlooked. I don't see why the people in question should not be explaining now!
Let us put sprinklers in all high rise buildings now so people can sleep safely. The point I was making is there is already a report reccomending that. It could just as easily have been a Labour government sitting on it - but let's not get defensive and do something instead.
There has to be some kind of cost-benefit analysis with any spending decision - no amount of money can reduce life's risks to zero.
It seems fairly likely to my untrained eye that a sprinkler system would have been useless given the ferocity of this fire and thus the problem lay elsewhere (seemingly in the building design).
Perhaps the sprinklers could be designed to come on *before* the block turns into an inferno?
On that basis every time there is a small controllable fire in one flat the entire building would be submerged in water as a precaution.
Yes, that's right. In the same way that when you turn the tap on in your kitchen sink, every tap in the house goes on.
Unless... the sprinklers could be designed to come on only in the area in which there is smoke and heat detected?
(By the way, how did your argument switch so seamlessly from "the ferocity of this fire" to "small controllable fire"? You could try to use one of those as an argument against sprinklers, but not both, surely).
On the basis that it seems the (ferocious) fire rapidly spread (from its presumably small beginnings) up the outside of the building (taking everything close to the windows with it) and not via the interior where the sprinklers would have been.
Anyhow we are all speculating that the cladding was to blame before it's been proven - however if it was the cladding then we are going to quickly discover that thousands of privately-owned buildings are also at the same severe risk, which puts to bed the highly politicised argument that no-one bothered about these people because they were poor.
We are not *all* speculating on the cladding being to blame.
Some are considering that the lack of sprinklers might have contributed. Or the lack of fire alarms. Or the lack of lighting in the fire escapes.
The fact that other people might have the same cladding does not absolve the council of the responsibility for the deaths of innocent people they had a duty of care over.
The lack of fire alarms or insufficient lighting in the stairwells don't help explain why the fire spread so quickly.
On a slightly related point, there seems to be some implication that councils try to do things on the cheap but private developers/residents don't but it may well be more the other way around (as those who have lived in private blocks of flats might acknowledge).
The lack of fire alarms or insufficient lighting *might* have contributed to people losing their lives.
I hope people aren't being persuaded that there are more important things to consider than people dying in their own homes.
im in no way saying that but councils do have budgets which they have to stick to, and the value of 10 million to knock down and rebuild 120 flats is well out imo.
Would it be better to fund newly-built, well-designed, safe flats; or store people in a dangerous tinderbox?
of course build new but imo i think your looking at a difference of about 70-80 million between the 2 options.
I don't think £80m for construction costs is anything like the cost it would be. That's two-thirds of a million pounds per unit.
But even if it were that cost, it would still be far, far less of a cost than the 17+ people who have paid for bad decisions with their lives.
Time, cost and quality are the three things that should drive a project. In the case of people's homes, the latter is far more important than the other two.
The point of high rise is you can house a lot with a small footprint. If you take down every tower there would not be enough space to house all the households locally.
The Wheatfield Wanderer has today met - in private - with a group of firefighters and a small number of journalists, near to the scene of the fire. Jeremy Corbyn is there now, meeting local people. Good on him. I'm sad and angry by what has happend. One can't help but see this tradegy as having Privatisation written all over it. Truth to come out, one hopes. In the meantme, watch those 'in charge' pass the buck.
According to The Guardian, a firefighter has won friends after posting a picture on Twitter of a telling detail about the fire... and then refusing The Sun permission to print it. @Crispymick posted a picture of his helmet with his name on it, with the comment: “You know it’s not going to be good when you’re told to write your name on your helmet before you go in!” Apparently, The Sun’s picture desk asked to use the photo, and Mick refused, thus: "Nope... Not in in your shitrag".
the last bit is on here a few pages back. He did indeed, quite rightly, tell them where to go.
the privatisation bit is interesting, I'm still scratching my head a little. from their website (KCTMO):
In the early 1990s, the tenants and leaseholders of the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea decided to pursue their legal right to manage their own homes. Following two separate ballots in 1994 and 1995, the Kensington and Chelsea Tenant Management Organisation (KCTMO) was established on 1 April 1996 and the responsibility for managing 9,760 properties passed from The Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea to the Tenant Management Organisation.
The Council still owns the properties and retains responsibility for strategic housing policies and homeless people. The relationship between KCTMO and the Council is governed by a Management Agreement, which covers all areas of the landlord business. Whilst KCTMO still enjoys a close working relationship with the Council, it is a completely separate company.
The majority of the board are tenants/leaseholders and it 'seems' to be a not for profit organisation (there are no shareholders as such).
Totally agree, Curb_it. She speaks so well and won't be pushed into speculative areas of discussion by the press. Each time she speaks, I am in awe of her because I know I couldn't hold it together to speak to the vulture press and TV.
Totally agree. It's people like her who should be rewarded in the honours lists, not bloody actors & pop stars. The whole of the Fire Brigade have my utmost respect for the difficult & dangerous job they do.
Totally agree. It's people like her who should be rewarded in the honours lists, not bloody actors & pop stars. The whole of the Fire Brigade have my utmost respect for the difficult & dangerous job they do.
Totally agree. It's people like her who should be rewarded in the honours lists, not bloody actors & pop stars. The whole of the Fire Brigade have my utmost respect for the difficult & dangerous job they do.
She has the Queen's Fire Service Medal.
And 2 jubilee medals. She will receive further honours in due course all leaders of emergency services do.
Let us put sprinklers in all high rise buildings now so people can sleep safely. The point I was making is there is already a report reccomending that. It could just as easily have been a Labour government sitting on it - but let's not get defensive and do something instead.
There has to be some kind of cost-benefit analysis with any spending decision - no amount of money can reduce life's risks to zero.
It seems fairly likely to my untrained eye that a sprinkler system would have been useless given the ferocity of this fire and thus the problem lay elsewhere (seemingly in the building design).
Perhaps the sprinklers could be designed to come on *before* the block turns into an inferno?
On that basis every time there is a small controllable fire in one flat the entire building would be submerged in water as a precaution.
Yes, that's right. In the same way that when you turn the tap on in your kitchen sink, every tap in the house goes on.
Unless... the sprinklers could be designed to come on only in the area in which there is smoke and heat detected?
(By the way, how did your argument switch so seamlessly from "the ferocity of this fire" to "small controllable fire"? You could try to use one of those as an argument against sprinklers, but not both, surely).
On the basis that it seems the (ferocious) fire rapidly spread (from its presumably small beginnings) up the outside of the building (taking everything close to the windows with it) and not via the interior where the sprinklers would have been.
Anyhow we are all speculating that the cladding was to blame before it's been proven - however if it was the cladding then we are going to quickly discover that thousands of privately-owned buildings are also at the same severe risk, which puts to bed the highly politicised argument that no-one bothered about these people because they were poor.
We are not *all* speculating on the cladding being to blame.
Some are considering that the lack of sprinklers might have contributed. Or the lack of fire alarms. Or the lack of lighting in the fire escapes.
The fact that other people might have the same cladding does not absolve the council of the responsibility for the deaths of innocent people they had a duty of care over.
The lack of fire alarms or insufficient lighting in the stairwells don't help explain why the fire spread so quickly.
On a slightly related point, there seems to be some implication that councils try to do things on the cheap but private developers/residents don't but it may well be more the other way around (as those who have lived in private blocks of flats might acknowledge).
The lack of fire alarms or insufficient lighting *might* have contributed to people losing their lives.
I hope people aren't being persuaded that there are more important things to consider than people dying in their own homes.
im in no way saying that but councils do have budgets which they have to stick to, and the value of 10 million to knock down and rebuild 120 flats is well out imo.
Would it be better to fund newly-built, well-designed, safe flats; or store people in a dangerous tinderbox?
I agree with what you're saying but a lot of local people campaign against new builds. I was on the 2nd phase of the Re-Gen of West Hendon and the amount of protests they used to have outside the gates from locals were insane, one person even put a D-lock round there neck and attached themselves to a metal barrier and had to get cut out of it.
Unfortunately 'it will be safer if we rebuild it then refurbish' doesn't wash with a lot of people as they lose their homes, their comfort and their way of life. That thrown on top with the hand in hand price rise of said new builds leads to anger. And being honest, there's absolutely no reason why the refurbish couldn't have been done to a higher safer standard (other than greed)
One of the things with building new homes is people all agree that it needs to be done but then don't want them near them. There's a council block opposite me where the council have started to consult about building on the green space outside. We're right next to a park, so even though some green space would be lost, it's not as if there's none around. But there's been a protest against this and even a poorly attended fun day with bouncy castle to prove how well-loved the green space is. TBH I don't think it's residents of the council block, more the nimbys in the big houses nearby. The council (belatedly) have started building new homes and have plans for more. And this is early stage - it's not like it will be a tower block (and a lot better than the house built on the scrap of land there they sold 10 years ago).
There should be d be a program in place to demolish these old tower blocks as Bexley have done with the Larner Road Estate. The problem being, finding homes for the families that are displaced, so councils go gone the refurbishment route. I would like to add that I spent a good deal deal of my working life in the sprinkler industry (37years) and believe you me retrofitting sprinkler systems into existing tower blocks would be a logistical nightmare with location of the water tanks and pumping equipment etc. The best way would be demolish them and rebuild to modern standards, after all they will probably be demolished in the next 25years anyway.
It would be interesting to know how long realistically buildings are expected to last. The five storey LCC mansion blocks built in the 1930s are still going strong and you see plenty across London. Some tower blocks have barely lasted thirty years before demolition - this seems unacceptable.
Buildings should be able to be adapted assuming they were properly built and and adequately designed - there are tower blocks all over the world and they're not all failing so quickly.
There are problems with some buildings from the 50's, 60's and 70's due to the use of High Alumina Cement, which was prone to losing strength in certain situations leading to collapse in the worst cases
When we are lending against certain types of buildings built in those eras (multi storey car parks are a good example) we require complete satisfaction that HAC wasn't used
This partly explains why blocks from the 30's still remain, but many from more recent times don't
Comments
I hope people aren't being persuaded that there are more important things to consider than people dying in their own homes.
A very likable person and very good at her job
I don't know anyone who has served with her who will disagree with me
http://www.standard.co.uk/Front/london-fire-inside-the-2k-grenfell-tower-flats-before-the-blaze-a3565416.html
My understanding is there were a number of owned flats although I would still expect they were insured (for buildings) on the blanket policy.
Possessions are a different matter of course and insurance will be down to each individual so in time additional assistance may be needed if people didn't insure to help them rebuild.
were some privately owned? If not then that is of a very high standard for a council place I would have thought
In many council blocks (particularly in West London) there will be number of 'right to buy' privately owned flats that will have been sold on and/or rented out.
In fact up to 40% according to this analysis:
http://www.insidehousing.co.uk/right-to-buy-to-let/7011233.article#
Something that peeps who are in high rise buildings owned by an LA can do. Ask the LA for the most recent Fire Risk Assessment--- you wont get it so make sure u CC in the Leader of the Councils Opposition(Labour or Tory) they will make it an issue. If you are in a Residents Group and your able to get your own done its aprox £400.
The FRA use to be called the Fire Certificate which was undertaken by the Fire Brigade now its down to who "owns" the building to get it done by a consultant. As said before the ownership of the remedial actions is the biggest issue.
Just a point in my 3 years with a LA the worst by far for non compliance were schools . We found that they were aprox only 15% compliant to ANY statutory H+S legislation. What started the review ? A Head Teacher moaning that the LA was charging to much to get her fire doors replaced --she got the job done her self at a fraction of the cost --- only thing was they were MDF !! and not fire doors all had to be changed--- resulting in a full review.
Austerity ? im sure its playing its part but 20 years of de regulation and over complication at the micro level with H+S has all played a role.
Turns out I'm wrong, this link has fairly details costings on a high-rise development, obivously all developments will have different costs, but from that I'd estimate around £50 million + demolition and site clearing costs, so it becomes understandable why the refurb was happening. Of course better initial design would have avoided many of the issues and costs with the refurb.
http://www.building.co.uk/cost-model-tall-buildings/5067937.article
For all those saying it's terrible that the council went for the cheapest contractor - if they hadn't, the Taxpayers Alliance and press would have been on at them for being wasteful. The concerns of the residents could be ignored, but the concerns of the media rarely are. The block will probably be demolished - and the survivors told they have to move to Luton or Grimsby or Coventry because people earning what they earn can't afford to live in the impoverished pocket of the richest borough in England. People will agree, after all, they couldn't afford to live there either.
Our priorities as a country are all "the devil take the hindmost", even if we sympathise, we are thankful it is not us.
The Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea apparently has the most empty properties in the UK. More empty homes than some dismal northern town with no jobs since the mills and mines all shut down.
We as a country are "intensely relaxed" about the extremely rich and how our whole city is skewed to their priorities. Major developments are meant to either have a social housing element to them or pay something towards them. Westminster council lets most developers off with a fraction of what they should pay because they don't really want poor people living there. I'd be surprised if K&C doesn't as well.
I live in Lewisham, the centre of which is now dominated by high rise towers. They all have cladding and my suspicion is that in 10 years time they will all look terrible. They are very close together and it is not a nice development. Lots of them appear to be empty, which is just as well as no additional schools or doctors surgeries were built to accommodate them. As most of them were aimed at the wealthy, I can only assume they were built to a better standard, but who knows?
I'm very angry about this. At heart, politics is about how we allocate resources as a society. It gets expressed in ways that are often tribal and point-scoring and I can understand people feeling uncomfortable about that. But to me, the questions that flow from this awful tragedy are: why did it happen? how can we stop it happening again? what's stopping us? and only a very last "who's to blame?" - because that last question will focus on someone working for the TMO or the contractor, and leave the structures that enabled them intact.
Therein probably lies the most significant proportion of blame as to those responsible.
I know I'm stating the bloody obvious but sometimes the simplicity of a particular piece of the puzzle is what really needs to be focused on.....and in MHO that is it, without going off at tangents, as much of the media seem to be doing at present.
But even if it were that cost, it would still be far, far less of a cost than the 17+ people who have paid for bad decisions with their lives.
Time, cost and quality are the three things that should drive a project. In the case of people's homes, the latter is far more important than the other two.
We need to be able to re-assure people who live in high rise blocks as quickly as possible and we need to go after those who were responsible. Of course nobody will have wanted thi sto happen, but we also know concerns were raised and overlooked. I don't see why the people in question should not be explaining now!
It's all very complicated.
the privatisation bit is interesting, I'm still scratching my head a little. from their website (KCTMO):
In the early 1990s, the tenants and leaseholders of the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea decided to pursue their legal right to manage their own homes. Following two separate ballots in 1994 and 1995, the Kensington and Chelsea Tenant Management Organisation (KCTMO) was established on 1 April 1996 and the responsibility for managing 9,760 properties passed from The Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea to the Tenant Management Organisation.
The Council still owns the properties and retains responsibility for strategic housing policies and homeless people. The relationship between KCTMO and the Council is governed by a Management Agreement, which covers all areas of the landlord business. Whilst KCTMO still enjoys a close working relationship with the Council, it is a completely separate company.
The majority of the board are tenants/leaseholders and it 'seems' to be a not for profit organisation (there are no shareholders as such).
edit; a formal public inquiry has been ordered.
Unfortunately 'it will be safer if we rebuild it then refurbish' doesn't wash with a lot of people as they lose their homes, their comfort and their way of life. That thrown on top with the hand in hand price rise of said new builds leads to anger. And being honest, there's absolutely no reason why the refurbish couldn't have been done to a higher safer standard (other than greed)
When we are lending against certain types of buildings built in those eras (multi storey car parks are a good example) we require complete satisfaction that HAC wasn't used
This partly explains why blocks from the 30's still remain, but many from more recent times don't
https://www.designingbuildings.co.uk/wiki/High_alumina_cement