At approximately 00:54 on Wednesday morning an horrific fire was reported at Grenfell Tower in north Kensington, London. Within half an hour the flames were reported to have engulfed an entire side of the building, leaving many people trapped inside. We need answers and to do whatever we can to help the victims and ensure something like this doesn’t happen again.
Firstly, The Guardian has are some questions that need to be answered:
- How did the fire start?
- Why did the fire spread so quickly? Was the recently fitted new cladding at fault?
- Did the new gas pipes, which were reportedly unprotected, in the central stairway contribute?
- Why did the building’s alarm system seem so inadequate?
- Why were so many people told to “stay-put” rather than self-evacuate?
- Could sprinklers have helped put out the fire more quickly?
- Were any laws or regulations broken and who is responsible? How can the regulations and/or enforcement be strengthened?
- Did the emergency services have sufficient equipment and resources?
The victims need our help, many of whom have lost everything. A list of trusted places to donate money can be found here: and items can be donated to the Westaway Sports Centre on Crowthorne Road, London or St. John’s Church on Lansdowne Crescent in Notting Hill, London.
Support should also go to our brave emergency services professionals who rushed towards the fire and work hard all year around.
The Liberal Democrats have called for the cladding used on the building to be banned in the UK as it is in the US and is classed as flammable in Germany. Tom Brake said:
It is simply beyond belief to think that if just £5,000 more had been spent, these tragic deaths could have been prevented.
The government must urgently bring UK fire safety standards into line with those abroad.
It seems people’s homes were turned into death traps because they were fitted on the cheap.
It is utterly unacceptable and must never be allowed to happen again.
We must invest in safe, adequate homes for all and ensure strict fire safety standards are in place and fully implemented.
On Question Time last night, Norman Lamb said that it was unjustifiable that hotels had stronger fire safety provision than tower blocks:
Norman Lamb questions how there can be tighter regulations in hotels, than there are in some tower blocks #bbcqt pic.twitter.com/PIAfLAwC3z
— BBC Question Time (@bbcquestiontime) June 15, 2017
I’m sure I speak for everyone when I say our thoughts go to the victims and their families. Hopefully we will have some answers and changes soon.
* Eddie Sammon is a member of the Lib Dems in France and a regular reader of and commenter on Liberal Democrat Voice.
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33 Comments
Thanks Caron for adding the second part about the Liberal Democrat response! Would be good to hear responses from others in the comments section…
It would be helpful if various individuals who have been appearing on numerous media, attempting to pre empt the Inquiry outcome, stopped. Way too much posturing and finger wagging whilst the victims of the fire as as yet undetected.
Here’s a good article I’ve just read on the subject: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-40290158
The answers to your questions lie in the ideological belief system of the last four decades. Mindless outsourcing has led to situations where service providers become unaccountable to the people they are providing the service to as they just shrug their shoulders and say the (uncontactable) contractor is responsible. Mindless deregultion whereby any form of regulation is seen as a hindrance to the god of business. Mindless demonisation of people living on the margins.
In short – free market economics. All of the above have become significantly worse since 2010.
Ordinarily, I would agree with Ian Patterson about the correct response to such an horrific tragedy. However, there is a very serious risk to public disorder if issues aren’t addressed robustly and quickly. London is a tinderbox.
RBK&C has form. Does anyone remember Clanricarde Gardens? I think the year was 1982. A serious fire broke out in a group of houses in multiple occupation (HMOs) that resulted in several deaths. It turned out that RBK&C had not carried out the inspections that it was required to do by law. RBK&C does have a history of showing contempt towards people on low incomes.
I think it was in 1983 that on one occasion I delivered leaflets for the SDP in Trellick Tower. While up there I noticed that the doors to the second staircase were chained shut. I said to the caretaker: “What happens if there’s a fire?” She responded: “Don’t get complicated.” A few weeks later there actually was a fire and the residents had to be evacuated.
Have any of our senior politicians visited the scene. If not yet another opportunity missed. We seem to be on another planet to most people.
It is a cliché that it takes a disaster to get anything done and has been so since fires in upper floor factories in New York in the 1890s. Complacency has been widespread since at least 1665 when the then Mayor (not Sadiq Khan) said it was only a small fire and could be easily put out (I paraphrase, so as to avoid editorial criticism).
In office buildings such as the Euston Tower (35 floors) it is possible to instruct all the staff to leave (without running, which some consider common sense). Repeated fire drills are necessary. If middle and senior managers get notice of a fire drill they seem to arrange meetings elsewhere or sometimes refuse to evacuate when instructed by a fire marshal. In residential buildings persuasion is needed. Hotels which have been inspected have notices on internal doors saying keep closed but cleaners and delivery people come equipped with wedges to hold the doors open. Staff in tall buildings which are not air-conditioned are told that windows should not be opened because they contribute to creating a chimney effect, but open the windows anyway in hot weather. Loose papers blow away. There is also a suicide risk which is nothing to do with fire risk. Sadly this happens occasionally.
There is a report on the BBC this morning about a nurse who jumped from the sixth floor of a building and landed on a doctor. The doctor died, the nurse survived with fractures.
Tall buildings with lifts that are inadequately maintained become unpopular with tenants or leaseholders needing to climb stairs. Tighter regulation with adequate enforcement might make these buildings more usable. At least one lift should be fire safe and used in emergencies for disabled people who are not ambulant, including slow moving ambulant (and people with serious eyesight problems) because the slow moving ambulant slow down everybody else or create a temptation to try to overtake on the stairs.
People should be told not to put water on electrical fires, it makes the fire worse, therefore look at a fire extinguisher before using it. Not everybody speaks English, so EU regulations should continue to exist and be enforced in the event of Brexit, not just in hotels.
It is, as Ian and Steve say, important to wait for the results of the public inquiry before we reach any conclusions about accountability and the longer-term reforms needed to make sure such a horrific event can never happen again. But the reality is that (a) that inquiry is unlikely to report for at least a year, (b) there have been several reports over the years on this issue (including a parliamentary select committee report in 2000 and a coroner’s report after a similar fire in 2013) and (c) there are people living in high-rise buildings right now who will be deeply worried about the safety of their own buildings. There is no reason to wait before taking any action when there have been recommendations made which could be effected and when people are, rightly, very concerned. Let’s take those steps which we already know will improve the situation now, and use the recommendations of the full public iniquiry to form the basis for longer-term reform.
Eddie – much as I would be willing to donate towards helping the victims – bearing in mind https://www.theguardian.com/society/2017/apr/17/call-for-fundraising-pages-to-be-regulated-amid-concerns – how do you know all of the sites on the Just Giving page to which you linked can be trusted?
Hi Nonconformistradical, I got the Just Giving link from the Telegraph. Over £1,000,000 has been given to each of the two funds and I think Just Giving and others have verified them.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/06/15/london-fire-can-do-help-victims/
Thank you Eddie. The limited Lib Dem response I suppose is because we represent far fewer high-rise inner city wards in London than we did prior to 2014.
In my old ward (largely concrete towers) there were small deliberate fires in rubbish chutes and communal bins all the time but we were told that concrete didn’t burn and that the (admittedly frequent and phenomenally heavy) fire doors were meant to isolate any fire that did occur. The new factor is the cladding. Since the cladding is purely decorative why wait for an inquiry? Just strip the stuff off now.
A typical piece of measured and humane commentary by one of our most loyal and thoughtful contributors, Eddie, great you have joined our party and are writing this .
You , unlike some, are not playing politics with this , as mentioned by colleagues, unsavoury till we know what is happening based on what has happened.
I do suspect there is both petty stupidity at the root and far worse too.
I wonder if Eddie, or Caron or someone could explain the comment about what the five thousand pounds refers to …
I also ask the question which senior Lib Dem has been to speak to residents.
I would have expected every leadership candidate to have put in an appearance within the next few days.
We cannot point fingers until the report is complete, but there are three actions that can be taken now.
Demand that a programme, centrally funded, is commenced immediately to ensure that all similar buildings are safe.
Demand that public money will be given to help those affected to be legally represented.
Inequality is a major issue, and our leadership candidates must now review how they will tackle this inequality and bring their response to our hustings.
@Lorenzo Cherin
It has been claimed that it would have cost just an extra £5000 for the contractor to have installed fire-resistant cladding to the building:
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/grenfell-tower-fire-resistant-cladding-kensington-inquiry-latest-reynobond-london-a7792781.html
Still, at least business wasn’t burdened by the regulatory red-tape of being forced to spend an extra £5000.
Richard Wingfield makes the right comment in these tragic circumstances. Accountability and longer term reforms are not the immediate priority at this stage, when emotions are running so high. Rehousing the evacuees that have lost their homes and possessions is the first priority.
We also already have the select committee reports and the Coroners report from 2013 as a basis for implementing measures that can be acted on without waiting for the independent inquiry to report.
Fire safety is not the purview of any single party. All local authorities (of whatever political make-up) are responsible for ensuring the safety of their public housing provision.
On the issue of finances, virtually all local authorities (Conservative and Labour) have pointed to council tax freezes over several years as a demonstration of their efficiency, while social and property maintenance services have been cut to the bone.
The Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea has been at the forefront of this cost cutting drive even though they enjoy some of the lower council tax rates in London (due in part to the revenue they raise from parking charges and fines).
If efficiency was measured in terms of the quality of public service provision rather than how low council tax can be reduced to, we might have a different focus on the priorities.
Council tax needs to be reformed to a Land Value basis. If it was, Kensington and Chelsea should be among the best funded local service providers in the country by virtue of the extremely high land values in the Borough.
@Joseph Bourke
The fire was a building regulations issue. Those regulations are the responsibility of national government and their policies and policy outlook with regards to regulation.
Yes, the re-housing of tenants is an immediate priority as is the recovery of bodies and gathering of evidence, but action to remove or replace cladding from high-rise buildings needs to begin with almost immediate effect, nationally. The only body capable of enacting that swift and necessary action is the government and that action needs to take place well ahead waiting for the results of legal inquiries in order to allay the reasonable concerns of residents and workers in other tower-blocks. Obviously the action should be informed by expert opinion – but that opinion can be found within the space of a week, not years.
Thanks Lorenzo! Angry Steve appears to have answered your question about the cladding. The Guardian also have a new story on it saying the fire resistant cladding was only £2 per square metre more expensive, but no mention of the £5,000 figure.
@Angry Steve “Here’s a good article I’ve just read on the subject:…”
About the only real piece of information in that entire article was this:
“While fire sprinkler systems have been required in new high-rise residential buildings in England since 2007, it is not compulsory to retrofit them into existing buildings. So Grenfell Tower had none.”
I think one of the real institutional problems behind the Grenfell Tower tragedy is the upgrading of existing buildings (ie. fitting of sprinkler systems, emergency stairwells etc.). We only need to think about the removal of asbestos from public buildings to give some idea of the scale of the problem that needs to be grappled with.
I also think we need to understand why the Grenfell Action Group – composed of residents – felt unable to take direct action to remove uncollected rubbish from their corridors. Note, I’m not suggesting that the GAG carries any blame or that the accumulated rubbish caused the fire to spread, just that we do need to understand why the GAG felt unempowered and hence enable the taking of positive steps to help and encourage communities to feel empowered to take better care of their environs.
The Independent article you link to about the cladding is illuminating, and seems to indicate that our building regulations, materials testing and works approval processes are deficient – as otherwise how did a known flammable cladding get through the system and onto a residential building. Also, I do wonder whether our fire-resistance testing really reflects real world conditions such as in this tower where temperatures on the upper floors would have potentially been well in excess of 500C.
I work in Health and Safety & think Tom Brake’s response is right . This tragedy should have been avoided. The moment I saw the first pictures coming in, there was clearly visible combustion of the cladding up the building aiding the rapid spread of fire & breaching the planned containment. Evidence is emerging on this to point to the wrong cladding had been used, flammable cladding banned in Germany & the US for high rise buildings. Reports today say that some 30,000 UK buildings have the same material on the exterior,
http://metro.co.uk/2017/06/16/30000-buildings-in-uk-are-covered-in-the-same-cladding-as-grenfell-tower-6713539/
and this is a national scandal. The Government sat on a report & didn’t act on a coroners recommendation ! A Brexit Government that ridiculed expert advice and a culture that Safety professionals have been living under a regime which saw HSE budgets cut by 1/3, watered down regulation , reduced inspection & David Cameron’s quoted “Health and Safety monster” and “bonfire of regulations” demand this government resign today in shame. The climate of bullying in Whitehall over safety combined with austerity has claimed further lives. In a note on our party’s involvement in the coalition years, I met with a LD Cabinet minister in 2012 to ask him to end the Austerity talk which was hurting business confidence and resist the Conservatives over their attack on Health & Safety. He told me, that Austerity would cut the deficit and that Safety was red tape that cost jobs & slowed growth. He is no longer an MP.
Angry Steve,
I think this goes deeper than just a review and update of building regulations and fire safety as this article from a former employee of the tenants management organisation points out https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/jun/16/worked-kctmo-nightmares-burning-tower-blocks
@Joseph Bourke
Whilst there are likely multiple complex issues that rightly need to be addressed with a thorough investigation and recommendations, the issue of the cladding is so obvious and pressing that it needs to be addressed immediately. If the cladding hadn’t been fitted to the tower-block, we would almost certainly not be discussing this horrific disaster right now.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-40298473
Let’s hope it doesn’t escalate.
Angry Steve,
no doubt the cladding issue needs to be understood and resolved quickly – whether the material being used or the method of fitting. However, what is the source of the underlying frustration, anger and resentment that has led to the protest at the Town Hall probably has as much, if not more, to do with the sentiments expressed by this local resident http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-40291372
If I were living in a tower block that had been refurbished I would be terrified. I would urge all our councillors and local activists to establish whether there are any buildings locally that have been refurbished using these materials. If so, help residents to petition for the cladding to be removed immediately and fire alarms and sprinklers to be fitted now. Most councils have emergency funds which could be used.
There was a similar fire in Melbourne and the women’s hospital there had this cladding so it’s not just tower blocks at risk but hotels (Dubai) and other public buildings.
When I was a councillor in the 1980s our Tory run council started to privatise local services and to win a contract private companies would cut costs by reducing safety provision for workers. I think that process has become more and more reckless as it’s carried on. Privatisation should only be implemented when it provides a better service not a cheaper one.
It seems that the problem is in refurbished buildings rather than new build but I don’t think people can wait a long time for reports to be undertaken for something to be done. If people are at risk then immediate action must be taken no matter the cost.
The fire in Melbourne occurred in 2014 so maybe we can learn from their investigations.
Interesting comment by Jonathan Pile about health and safety. I use chemicals at work and they come with very comprehensive documentation relating to their use and dangers. I cannot believe that building materials are not similarly tested and documented, in which case either this material was inadequately tested, which would mean that responsibility lies with whichever body is charged with testing building materials; or that it had been properly documented and was misused, in which case responsibility is rather more widely spread. The £5000 figure quoted by Tom Brake from the Independent seems highly questionable to me – perhaps he should have checked the maths: an additional cost of £2 per square metre would mean that 2500 square metres of cladding would have been used, i.e. about 165′ x 165′. I would also seriously question the Metro’s assertion that 30,000 buildings are clad with this material.
There is now an massive logistic exercise required to take care of those affected and to organise and co-ordinate the various charitable and community groups that are working to help those affected. This is in effect a disaster emergency team with a disaster manager. Councils used to have these in place, with regular training taking place. I can only assume these have been cut, anyway the Tories of Kensington do not appear to have a clue.
In that case the government should step in with their disaster management team, but all we have is an inadaquate PM bolting from rabbit hole to rabbit hole. The Tory chickens of leave it all to the private sector have truly come home to roost.
Sue Sutherland
Your contributions are getting more important than ever and here you speak for us all, each of us must agree that even though the rush to judgement is wrong our eyes and ears and hearts and minds show , here, so much else is wrong too!
Time for a real progressive alliance…
> Sue Sutherland writes:
> It seems that the problem is in refurbished buildings rather than new
> build …[t]he fire in Melbourne occurred in 2014 so maybe we can
> learn from their investigations.
That may be the case in the UK, but the Lacrosse Tower in Melbourne was actually a new build.
A report into the 2014 fire:
http://www.melbourne.vic.gov.au/sitecollectiondocuments/mbs-report-lacrosse-fire.pdf
A Senate committee transcript from 2015, highlighting the lack of progress:
http://parlinfo.aph.gov.au/parlInfo/search/display/display.w3p;query=Id%3A“committees%2Fcommsen%2F0305d1e1-8ffc-40e3-944d-51eca7dd7f5d%2F0010”
Two and a half years later, the cladding still hasn’t been removed from that building.
Theresa May decided she wanted to be interviewed on the BBC. This happened on BBC2 Newsnight on 16/6/2017. She came up with £5 million for displaced householders, but there was a lack of empathy and the usual reluctance to answer the questions that the BBC journalist asked, or to meet survivors and let them ask questions. We already know from Labour and Green GLA members that it is unlikely that expletives would be deleted.
It was unclear whether there was any compensation for the relatives of the deceased.
Tottenham MP David Lammy (Labour) has said that the fire was corporate manslaughter. I can see his point. The issue was discussed on Radio 4 World at One. The conclusion was that a successful prosecution requires some difficult tests to be met and therefore such prosecutions have been few.
I do not recall what happened when a cross-channel ferry went out with its bow doors open and sank with heavy loss of life, except that a Tory Cabinet Minister, Nicholas Ridley, made some very unfortunate remarks in the Commons, under privilege of course.
I don’t want to pre-empt a full enquiry, but two things seem to me to stand out here.
First is the immediate one, that a well-off borough in Inner London doesn’t seem to have an emergency plan or the resources allocated to carry it out. Other councils ought also to be thinking what would happen here if a similar scale of disaster happened.
The second is that while individual questions of maintenance, refurbishment or use of materials are being raised, I wonder if the real problem is Systems and hence the correct allocation of responsibility while things are apparently going along OK. We may end up blaming individuals while forgetting that the problems are wider than that, and that people have to be given a clear duty and the training and support to implement it.
a well-off borough in Inner London
Is it? Just because the media say something doesn’t necessarily mean it is true…
Yes, the borough is generally known for and associated with it’s more wealthy residents. But does this popular perception, really mean the borough is “well off”?
Looking at the wealth divide heat map in the BBC article (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-40290158 ), it is clear the popular perception doesn’t match on-the-ground reality – hence why the Grenfell tradegy has been such an eye opener. I suspect this rude awakening has much to do with the rich.v.poor outrage we are seeing.
This is before we even consider how the wealth of a borough’s residents gets translated into the ‘wealth’ of a local authority. My understanding is that the funding formula provides an equitable distribution of monies raised by both local and national taxation across all local authorities, nationally.
I therefore think many are falling into the trap being set by the media’s agenda (including that of the BBC – see cited article), who clearly want to portray this tragedy in terms of a classic wealth divide that will (and has) stirred up perceived divisions in our society.
From what I’ve seen todate, the Grenfell tragedy has more to do with a failure of building and fire regulations and a risk assessment that didn’t properly assess both the probability and the implications of a small internal fire (refrigerator electrical fault) spreading to become an external fire.
Now can any one tell me if 3 Merchant Square uses the same type of cladding? Certainly the BBC can’t.
Good morning, I think its time the housing stock was brought into this century with Decent Homes.
Still not there, we have a drastic shortage of decent housing stock, there must be questions asked.
Someone I was talking with the other day, suggested flat pack housing as a housing relief.
London is not the easiest place to resolve housing shortages. In Bath full to bursting with student accommodation, its becoming a city belonging to those who only stay for the required time.
I’ve lived in less than perfect housing, some will get brand new housing, some will have to live in less than Decent Homes.
I’ve written much on the subject, yet it remained my problem. If you want to put people before politics this is one area. There are locals in Bath, who live and work here and have to move out of the city and travel on the already over used road systems.
Fact-finding is underway in Manchester by local Lib Dems using nothing more than Google Earth and a laptop. We stuck pins in for several hundred tall buildings using Google Earth Pro in strongly tilted 3D view overlain by an opaque shape file overlain at 20 metres above ground level. 75 pins were noted to be tower blocks of social housing and clicking ‘historical images’ proved them to be pre-2000 age, but many looked new due to major refurbishment post-2010. Of the 75 pins, 16 tower blocks failed cladding tests and ‘historical images’ prove 3 had cladding done in 2010, 3 more in 2013 etc. Lib Dems are about to publish the results. Please click here for the preliminary results:
http://www.researchgate.net/publication/317869623_Atlas_of_Tower_Blocks_of_Manchester_UK
The ease of using 3D Google Earth Pro opens up a fresh avenue for ‘citizen science’ to enable the public and community representatives to hold to account senior politicians, policy makers, administrators, and experts in construction, maintenance, health and safety.