They said the same as the sales sheets at the time.

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Bob Smith
Member of Seti PIPPS (Pluto is a Planet Protest Society)
Somewhere in the (un)known Universe?

TWO YEARS HENCE...


Grenfell survivors project messages on 'unsafe' tower blocks

Campaigners have projected messages on to high-rises across England saying they are unsafe...

... The Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government said in a statement: "The Government has banned combustible materials in the external walls of new high-rise homes and guidance requires that sprinklers must be installed in new buildings above 30 metres.

"Building owners are ultimately responsible for the safety of the building and it is for them to decide whether to retro-fit sprinklers."



All in our only one world,
Martin

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See new freedom: Mageia Linux
Take a look for yourself: Linux Format
The Future is what We all make IT (GPLv3)

TWO YEARS HENCE...


Grenfell survivors project messages on 'unsafe' tower blocks

Campaigners have projected messages on to high-rises across England saying they are unsafe...

... The Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government said in a statement: "The Government has banned combustible materials in the external walls of new high-rise homes and guidance requires that sprinklers must be installed in new buildings above 30 metres.

"Building owners are ultimately responsible for the safety of the building and it is for them to decide whether to retro-fit sprinklers."

Aren't most of your blocks over there government owned? Seems again like they aren't willing to pay the piper.
Retrofit needs to be mandatory in living space.

And for an encore:


Grenfell Tower: Hundreds of buildings still have 'unsafe' cladding

More than 200 high-rise buildings in England with cladding similar to that used on Grenfell Tower are yet to have work to remove it.

Out of 328 buildings that still have aluminium composite material (ACM) cladding, 221 are awaiting work to start.

Events on Friday will mark the second anniversary of the Grenfell Tower fire in which 72 people died.

The government will pay £200m to remove ACM from privately owned blocks. There have been calls for the funding to be extended to other forms of cladding and fire safety measures...



To my mind, the whole building industry here needs an overhaul. Including removing the greedy profits gained from "land banking" and the deliberate restricting of housing supply to then charge excessive prices for short term small unskilled labour shoddy nasty pieces of environmentally unfriendly work... The end result is expensive and uncomfortable to live in also...

All in the UK,
Martin

---

See new freedom: Mageia Linux
Take a look for yourself: Linux Format
The Future is what We all make IT (GPLv3)

Aren't most of your blocks over there government owned? Seems again like they aren't willing to pay the piper.
Retrofit needs to be mandatory in living space.

I agree with the latter part of your statement - there are too many people using the complex arrangements around the UK "public rented housing" market and do so to avoid their duty of care to the tenants.

That's a very common (miss) understanding, but it depends on where in the UK one is looking.
A fairly large proportion are owned by a small number of "commercial" land lords, who rent the whole block to a management company or local authority, who then rent them out to the individual tenants - a grade one mess with each layer taking their "10%".
In the past the majority of the blocks were built and run by local authorities, but they sold them off to these commercial organisations to raise money for "other projects".
Some were built by these commercial outfits, who then lease the whole block to either a housing association or the local authority.....

(Housing associations are sort of quasi-local authorities set up with the specific aim of managing part or all of an areas rented housing stock. Some will commission their own new build properties, some will take on existing buildings.)

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Bob Smith
Member of Seti PIPPS (Pluto is a Planet Protest Society)
Somewhere in the (un)known Universe?

Sounds familiar

"Mistakes" in the redesign of a city centre station led to the rapid spread of a huge fire.
The court was also told the station's builders had "cut corners" by packing the wall supporting the toilet block with a foot of highly flammable polystyrene after realising the ceiling was uneven.

The same, but different. Over the years many builders have cut corners to get the job done "in time".... The job foreman shouts at the guys on the job who find whatever they can to fill the gap, cover it up so it looks OK, job done, move on to next site.
Add to that a poorly project managed job "aided" by having two clients who didn't exactly agree on what the building (interior) should look like.....

The thing about voids between false ceilings, "disjointed" walls etc. and old wooden structures is a known issue, and these can be quite massive, and almost totally impossible to gain access to once the finish cladding is in place. I've been through Nottingham station quite a few times over the years, and it shows signs of not just one, but several stages of "refreshment". Most have been pretty disastrous in aesthetic terms as they are so mismatched - I think it would have been far better to have gone back to the bare building and had a more open structure, which would be far easier to inspect and maintain than having a number of inaccessible ducts for fire to race along in an undetectable manner. Sprinklers would then have been of use not only in killing the initial blaze but also containing it to the toilet block.

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Bob Smith
Member of Seti PIPPS (Pluto is a Planet Protest Society)
Somewhere in the (un)known Universe?

Sounds familiar

"Mistakes" in the redesign of a city centre station led to the rapid spread of a huge fire.
The court was also told the station's builders had "cut corners" by packing the wall supporting the toilet block with a foot of highly flammable polystyrene after realising the ceiling was uneven.

"I also suspect there are challenges when modifying historic buildings to meet the latest fire regulations, but it's not a regular occurrence for someone to set fire to a toilet.

How many people smoke fags? How careful are they in where they throw them? This is called head in sand disease!

Too many.
And some are just plain stupid.
I was on Nottingham station a few days after the fire. There were several piles of fresh fag butts in the more secluded corners of the place, cleaning staff were working hard to remove them all. I saw one "gentle person" being led off in cuffs protesting that they weren't doing any harm by having a "quick joint in that corner" pointing to a corner of the cordoned off area and underneath a monster "NO SMOKING" sign. Later in the day (on my way home) there were fresh piles where there hadn't been any in the morning, and the cleaning staff were still at it.

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Bob Smith
Member of Seti PIPPS (Pluto is a Planet Protest Society)
Somewhere in the (un)known Universe?

BTW lest you wonder what a fire sprinkler will do or how well or fast it works
https://www.baltimoresun.com/food-drink/bs-fo-saganaki-sprinklers-20180423-story.html

Unavailable to the EU. :-(

Unavailable to the EU. :-(

Something here should be available.
https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&channel=tus&q=cava+fire+baltimore

Thanks. Much rather be soaked than toasted.

A bit of sense from GreenPeace:
'National agency needed' to enforce Scottish building standards
Personally I wouldn't restrict such an agency just to Scotland....

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Bob Smith
Member of Seti PIPPS (Pluto is a Planet Protest Society)
Somewhere in the (un)known Universe?

As long as it doesn't operate along lines similar to the FAA...

It criticised the current system for policing building regulations which relies on builders to certify much of their work, with limited checks by council officials.

...which is currently occurring.

Funny how over recent years, new buildings & refurbishments suffer disasters.

Graham Adams, from London Fire Brigade, said: "This is a challenging fire and firefighters are working hard to bring the blaze under control.

Cause not yet known.
4 storey block gutted
One good result was the fact that neighbours alerted each other to get out. No fatalities or injured.
Just one concern.
A resident stated that fire alarms were going off in the community areas but not in his flat.

How many more "management" companies with mottos "Profits 1st"?
How about an interest free loan to get the work done

Celestia Management Company Ltd said it needed "clarification" from Redrow before it could consider or further comment on the proposals made.
It said Redrow had "made no comment on the other significant defects" including external fire safety defects, defective render, defective roof anchors and defective balconies.

Grenfell Tower fire: 'Systemic failures' in fire brigade's response

The London Fire Brigade (LFB) has been condemned for "serious shortcomings" and systemic failures in its response to the Grenfell Tower fire, in a report into the 2017 blaze.

Fewer people would have died in the fire if the LFB had taken certain actions earlier, the report by inquiry chairman Sir Martin Moore-Bick said.

He also said some evidence given by the LFB at the inquiry was "insensitive".

The report has been seen by the BBC ahead of its publication on Wednesday.

The 1,000-page document follows the first phase of the inquiry, which looked at what happened on the night that 72 people died in the tower block fire on 14 June 2017.

The council, the tower's tenant management organisation, the police and the fire service were all quizzed during the inquiry's first phase.

Will anything change due to the findings of this report?

And not so long ago people were saying that Sir Martin Moore-Bick would do his best to hide officials from blame. He's certainly put the knife into the LFB.

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Bob Smith
Member of Seti PIPPS (Pluto is a Planet Protest Society)
Somewhere in the (un)known Universe?