It looks to me like Corporate manslaughter charges will be coming for the manufacturer Celotex, (if Panorama claims are true).
They sold the cladding & insulation knowing it wasn't safe and lied in their marketing material.
How could they ? I mean seriously how could they ?
BBC1 tonight 8pm.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-44200041 
Comments
Absolute down right lies.
One could argue that further tests should be carried out, but at this point in time to me that is debatable.
If I bought let's say a fire retardant sofa I would 100% expect it to be fire retardant.
I don't believe this is the time to be playing party politics.
(EDIT) But people making uninformed decisions did not cause this fire, it may not have helped but somebody should pay for this disaster. Hopefully that will prevent it happening again. It does sound as though the producer of the cladding has misold a substandard product.
Now this neglect is not dangerous like Grenfall, but in one case it was dangerous in that railings on a higher floor could have fallen down any minute and kids lived in the flats in question. The council had to be threatened to sort it out, the lease holders had to pay thousands for a job that if maintained properly wouldn't have needed doing.
These are different cases and nobody has died, but this is how many councils - of all colours - work now.
95% of the time, the biggest issue the Leaseholders have is the cost - and therefore their share of that cost - and you'd be surprised at the alternatives they suggest should be used.
It was well documented that Grenfall tenants and leaseholders raised concerns about their safety and this is an area the inquiry has to go as well. Why were they not listened to?
I understand the resident himself managed to escape.
I also think it's probably best to leave the inquiry to come to it's conclusions rather make suppositions and posting nothing more than rumour and hearsay.
Honestly, if it wasn't so tragic, it would be funny, rather than pathetic at best, and despicable at worst.
The scandal here, as you say, is that people were lied to.
Might be complete bollocks though.
This wasn’t a housing association set-up, it was local authority housing managed by someone else on the council’s behalf. In my experience that means the council maintains a housing revenue account, legally distinct from its general fund, which is used to maintain the property. The council remains the owner of the buildings.
This is what Wiki says:
“The original contractor, Leadbitter, had been dropped by KCTMO because their price of £11.278 million was £1.6 million higher than the proposed budget for the refurbishment. The contract was put out to competitive tender. Rydon's bid was £2.5 million less than Leadbitter's.[36] An alternative cladding with better fire resistance was refused due to cost.[45] If the Leadbitter cladding had been used, fire experts maintain the fire would not have spread as it did and lives may not have been lost. The Conservative council rejected the bid for non combustible materials on cost grounds. The authority was in “robust” financial health, accounts for 2014 show. There were £235m in usable reserves and the budget for services was underspent by £23m.[46]
The fact that it seems the manufacturers and contractors seem likely to shoulder the blame is a whitewash. Those people didn't make the decisions, they are propelled by them and those decisions are made by elected councillors which is where the fucking buck has to stop. I guarantee it won't.
Rich people with soft hands covered in a lot of poor people's blood. Again
Funding was controlled through K&C, but the majority of it was provided though additional funding from the CLG for the K&CTMO to achieve Decent Home Standards Plus. The financial health or otherwise of K&C Council is a red herring as the cost wasn't coming from their Capital budget directly.
The proposed works were valued higher than that funding available and the TMO looked for alternatives to the Leadbitter bid.
The Council were told that an alternative to the zinc composite cladding was available with similar characteristics, that complied with all the requirements of the Building Regulations and passed all relevant British Standards, but was it was £300k less.
I'm not sure there would be a Council in the land of whatever colour who wouldn't chose that alternative at the time.
This type of aluminium composite cladding has been used successfully for years on high rise buildings throughout Europe without any significant incidents. Indeed, I expect there are still dozens of buildings in London alone that are not deemed to be high rise but still have it.
I know of a four year old, six storey building in Coulsdon with exactly the same ACM cladding as Grenfell. There was a fire on a balcony (believe it or not a resident was having a BBQ) which reached the cladding. Although badly scorched, it didn't actually ignite.
Replace Kensington and Chelsea councillors with board members at BT, Carillion, Enron. Same thing, soft, fat, gimlets making spreadsheet decisions that affect business longevity and human beings yet never held to account