PM orders tower block fire inquiry

Prime Minister Theresa May has ordered a full public inquiry into the massive fire that engulfed a west London block of flats, killing at least 17 people.

Theresa. The inquiry is already underway!

That the building only had one stairwell surprises me.

That's what the residents are saying, and that's what the floorplan printed by the Daily Telegraph is showing. Civvy street regs from 1974?

I was thinking that this one was big enough, bad enough, and visible enough to be taken seriously - and I think the full public enquiry proves that there's no carpet big enough to brush it under. Might not have happened if the fire occurred in a small northern city, alas.

Edit - working off that Telegraph plan as if it were to scale, and assuming that the floor areas are accurate, I make that staircase less than a metre wide - even less, if you take handrails etc. into account.

500 people (including elderly and disabled), 24 floors, at night, without emergency lighting? No way.

I saw that many muslims are tenants.
It's now Ramadan and they only cook and eat at nights.
It could be that someone forgot something on a stove that caught fire.
Not so many months ago that happened where I live.
A woman trying to extinguish a fire from burning oil.
She added water. BOOM!
The fire brigade was here before I even noticed any smoke or anything!

That the building only had one stairwell surprises me.

That's what the residents are saying, and that's what the floorplan printed by the Daily Telegraph is showing. Civvy street regs from 1974?

I was thinking that this one was big enough, bad enough, and visible enough to be taken seriously - and I think the full public enquiry proves that there's no carpet big enough to brush it under. Might not have happened if the fire occurred in a small northern city, alas.

Edit - working off that Telegraph plan as if it were to scale, and assuming that the floor areas are accurate, I make that staircase less than a metre wide - even less, if you take handrails etc. into account.

500 people (including elderly and disabled), 24 floors, at night, without emergency lighting? No way.

Interesting piece in the FT London tower block’s refurbishment raises fire safety questions

The concrete council housing towers of the 1960s and 1970s are often derided as inherently unsafe, and there have been a number of tragedies associated with them. But unlike, for instance, the cheap, system-built Ronan Point Tower that collapsed in 1968, Grenfell Tower was a substantial structure, using external concrete columns and in situ cast concrete.
...
The plans for Grenfell Tower’s refurbishment show a new, denser layout at the north Kensington tower block and, astonishingly, only one stairway for all 120 flats. New apartments had been added in to the base of the tower, which had been designed as partly open space with community facilities. The building was raised on concrete stilts on an open base.
...
According to first-person reports, none of the residents appears to have heard fire alarms during Wednesday’s blaze. It is unclear whether there were sprinkler systems — or if there were, whether they were working.

Plans for the refurbished tower also appear to lack fire lobbies for some of the flats, with many appearing to have been compromised in the process of squeezing more apartments into a typical floor. The original plans do not seem to feature lobbies — begging serious questions about how the plans were given permission in the first place.

I found this while reminding myself of the T Dan Smith/John Poulson affair at about the same time in the early 70's
Poulson designed some buildings in Catterick Garrison which were a fire hazard and had been retro-fitted with very loud industrial fire alarms. To stay inside when they went off was a quick trip to hearing problems.

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My first home in the east end was on the 18th floor of a tower block overlooking Victoria Park. We were there during the big storm we were told wasn't coming and it was both scary and exhilarating to experience. The building had two wide stairwells, not very pleasant to use with a newborn baby daughter in tow, but more reliable than the lifts. One served even numbered floors, the other odd. It was eventually demolished rather than refurbished. Two other identically built blocks on the estate were done up though.

I doubt they pose the kind of risk to tenants that we saw unfold yesterday.

According to first-person reports, none of the residents appears to have heard fire alarms during Wednesday’s blaze.

We have fire alarms here as well.
It can be very difficult to hear them.
Especially if you are sleeping.
And what to do if you hear them?
Stay inside says the fire brigade!

David Lammy (think I have that right) a labour MP is calling for a criminal investigation, and I have to say, I agree.

Trellick Tower a few hundred yards away and completed in 1972, has a separate service tower. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trellick_Tower

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Today's Guardian (business pages) has this:

The Duke of Westminster’s property group is to build 1,500 rental homes in south-east London, one of the capital’s biggest “build to rent” developments.

The proposed £500m project will be Grosvenor’s first “build to rent” development – and the first foray into Bermondsey, in south-east London – in the company’s 340-year history. One of Britain’s biggest property owners, it owns swaths of the capital’s most exclusive neighbourhoods in Mayfair and Belgravia.

The firm, owned by 26-year-old Hugh Grosvenor – who became the Duke of Westminster and Britain’s youngest billionaire last year after his father’s sudden death, is tapping into the rising trend for long-term renting among young professionals. This has led to a growing number of build-to-rent projects in Britain in recent years – professionally managed rental accommodation in purpose-built blocks, common in many other countries such as the US.

Grosvenor plans to construct up to 11 blocks of varying heights on a 12-acre former biscuit factory site in Bermondsey. The tallest tower, with 25 storeys, will be built in the centre of the site, adjacent to a railway line, with a route under the line to The Blue local market. The railway arches will be refurbished as commercial space.

...

A master plan unveiled at the start of a public consultation shows the development with a new 600-place secondary school at its heart, alongside 110,000 sq ft of public space and almost 20,000 sq ft of play space.

We've already forgotten that the cladding at Grenfell was paid for by the builders of a new 'Academy' school nearby, as compensation to the residents for disruption because of the school building work.

Edited to add link to full guardian article.

From reading the description of the building, single staircase, no sprinklers, kindling cladding, no fire alarms, I'd say the people who wrote the building and safety codes should be put on a top story of a similar building and have it torched while they are asleep.

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A long chain of contractual relationships link the local authority owners of Grenfell Tower to the manufacturers of the cladding panel on the outside of the building.
Rydon employed a sub-contractor, the family-owned Harley Facades to install the cladding.
http://www.standard.co.uk/news/london/how-a-specialist-firm-won-the-deal-to-refurbish-grenfell-tower-a3565801.html

The panels were supplied by Suffolk based Celotex, part of the French St Gobain group. They are described as textured aluminium foil facings, manufactured from rigid polyisocyanurate using a blowing agent that has low global warming potential (GWP) and zero ozone depletion potential.

Swedish saying "Ju fler kockar desto sämre soppa".
Many chefs makes a bad soup.

I am surprised you are not making hay over Celotex being a US corporation. The UK one was a subsidiary of the US corporation. In the late 1970s, I toured one of their factories/research centers in Arkansas, and saw the PIR panels being made. Good stuff. VERY good R-value for its thickness.

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https://youtu.be/iY57ErBkFFE

#Texit

Don't blame me, I voted for Johnson(L) in 2016.

Truth is dangerous... especially when it challenges those in power.

David Lammy (think I have that right) a labour MP is calling for a criminal investigation, and I have to say, I agree.

There will never be any convictions.
It will take years to indict anyone.
There's so many companies involved in this tragedy and they will blame each other.
Meanwhile Business As Usually :(

I am surprised you are not making hay over Celotex being a US corporation. The UK one was a subsidiary of the US corporation.

Why are you surprised?
Who cares from where a corporation comes from?
It's a global economy today.

From reading the description of the building, single staircase, no sprinklers, kindling cladding, no fire alarms, I'd say the people who wrote the building and safety codes should be put on a top story of a similar building and have it torched while they are asleep.

Sounds like a death-trap to me. *IF* this building met 'code' (and from the sound of it, I highly doubt it did), I would agree with your proposed penalty.

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https://youtu.be/iY57ErBkFFE

#Texit

Don't blame me, I voted for Johnson(L) in 2016.

Truth is dangerous... especially when it challenges those in power.

I am surprised you are not making hay over Celotex being a US corporation. The UK one was a subsidiary of the US corporation.

Why are you surprised?
Who cares from where a corporation comes from?
It's a global economy today.

Well, with all of the USA bashing going on world-wide, I am surprised.

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https://youtu.be/iY57ErBkFFE

#Texit

Don't blame me, I voted for Johnson(L) in 2016.

Truth is dangerous... especially when it challenges those in power.

I am surprised you are not making hay over Celotex being a US corporation. The UK one was a subsidiary of the US corporation.

Why are you surprised?
Who cares from where a corporation comes from?
It's a global economy today.

Well, with all of the USA bashing going on world-wide, I am surprised.

For all I know it's only the present US "government" that upset us here in Europe.
Sometimes amuse us:)

If the Hackney side of the park then it could've been Gascoyne Estate or Trowbridge Estate. The tower blocks on Trowbridge got demolished in 1985 though. There were Tower blocks on the Old Ford side of the park but not sure if they have a view of the park.

From what I can recall of those days, the tower blocks on Gascoyne had stairway lighting.

If the Hackney side of the park then it could've been Gascoyne Estate or Trowbridge Estate. The tower blocks on Trowbridge got demolished in 1985 though. There were Tower blocks on the Old Ford side of the park but not sure if they have a view of the park.

From what I can recall of those days, the tower blocks on Gascoyne had stairway lighting.

Old Ford is spot on, Sirius.

edit: I've offered my front room (British for lounge) to anyone desperate enough to want to have a temporary roof over their head that is also mine. I'm hoping it'll help me manage my third party anger

From reading the description of the building, single staircase, no sprinklers, kindling cladding, no fire alarms, I'd say the people who wrote the building and safety codes should be put on a top story of a similar building and have it torched while they are asleep.

Sounds like a death-trap to me. *IF* this building met 'code' (and from the sound of it, I highly doubt it did), I would agree with your proposed penalty.

Saw a report on BBC where the report was fire/building people overseas were gobsmacked at what the codes allowed.

I can see mandatory retrofits coming or occupancy permits revoked. I suspect in more than a few cases buildings will have to come down. Might be a good time to be in construction on the Island.

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In a hearing about cuts in Fire Department, Boris Johnson former Mayor of London, loses patience, asking Labor politicians Andrew Dismore to get stuffed.
Johnson apologizes directly, but the clip is seen as an example of arrogance among the politicians driven by cuts in the London Fire Department.
Criticism has also been directed against both Theresa May and Jeremy Corbyn trying picking political points.