grenfell tower and new homes

Hard to understand how it could be penny pinching though, when so much overall was spent on the refurbishment ( of course it could be) we shall see, but it could also be that a mistake was made in actually choosing it ( if it is illegal cladding) or that somebody was incompetent somewhere along the line.
The people will be given a choice ( regarding the new flats) nobody will force them into a high rise ( although think the new ones are not more than five floors?)It may mean waiting longer for a house,or as Jalima has said, moving away from the city, perhaps they should be asked if they would like to leave London, if they think they could work somewhere else, a fresh start.Either way, I am sure their wishes will be acted on.
I don't think that social housing should ever be sold either Iam64 unless we ever get into the position of having too much of it!

I understand from reporting that there was a difference in cost between the fireproof cladding and what was used of about £5000. I think that feels like penny-pinching in the context of peoples lives being at risk.

£5000 is the amount i read luck

Penny pinching indèed. Roydon is the named company.

If that is indeed a fact Lucky then it certainly would be, yes.

I think we should be careful on a public forum what we say about this.

Why?

because there are laws of libel.

and I should have added, it is not what you say, but the way that you say it.

And if the knowledge is in the public forum e.g. on television?

Roydon was the company named as the one that cladded the tower -

From what I have read, the developer has let the council have them for cost price.
Philanthropy in action again.
They know they will be built to a good standard, too, and will feel safe in them.
It's a long time since I've felt this good.

However, I can't understand why May said today that the cladding is being tested and they will know in the next 48 hours. It's been shown that it wasn't safe/legal.

Perhaps, for the purposes of the law, it has to be absolutely established beyond any shadow of doubt that it was not the cladding that was meant to be used.

That's to do with who was culpable, not whether it was safe or not, which is what was asked in the commons.

The Newcastle leader has said that the council does not have oversight of the blocks that were built and/or clad by private developers.
If it turns out that developers have used cheaper materials than specified, that's against the law, but has also killed people.
Surely no architect would specify cladding that was not fireproof.

Just wondering, if it goes to court, how on earth are they going to find a jury?

People will be called for jury service the same as always.You are not excused it easily either.

I did post this on another thread, but 'affordable housing' is housing rented or sold at 80% of the market rate or value.

I think there's been a lot of assumptions or wrong information about the properties in the media, but the Independent has printed this article and seems to have done its homework, even including a link to the planning application.

The facts

I apologise for posting wrong information on the other thread about this.

I'm not sure the Independent has got it right at all. I can only see references to 'affordable housing' not 'social housing'.

Okay, it would appear that the Corporation of London has bought the 68 flats to be used as social housing from the quota of 120 affordable homes in the development.

Grenfell Tower Fire Statement.

Prime Minister.

Re-housing

" Turning to re-housing, Mr Speaker, 151 homes were destroyed in the fire, most in the tower itself but also several in the immediate vicinity.

All those who have lost their homes have been offered emergency hotel accommodation; and all will be offered rehousing within 3 weeks.

Already 164 suitable properties have been identified and they are being checked and made ready for people to move into.

In the longer term, everyone whose home was destroyed will be guaranteed a new home on the same terms as the one they lost.

Sixty-eight of those will be in a brand-new low-rise block that has just been built by Berkeley Homes. The developer has generously offered to turn over the entire block at cost price. Contractors are on-site now, working 24/7 to speed up fit-out so that the first families can move in this summer.

Within the wider cordon area, many more homes were damaged by smoke or water or have lost gas, heating and hot water. Emergency hotel accommodation is available for anyone who does not want to remain in a damaged property and over 100 hotel rooms have already been provided.

We are also putting in place practical support to help accelerate necessary repairs and yesterday drew on expertise from the army to assist with this.

Some survivors have said that they want to leave the local area, and we will of course support that and help them find a home elsewhere.

But I want to be absolutely clear - nobody is being forced to move somewhere they don’t want to go.

And if any Honourable Member thinks they know of anyone being treated in this way – they should contact my office in Downing Street with the details."

It's good to hear it's low rise. The Kensington Row development is part of a huge regeneration project and the aim is to create a new garden village. You can see the buildings marked Affordable Housing at the top right on this plan.

Let's hope it's the actual people who were in the block who are given new homes not those who may have been officially listed as tenants but who were illegally subletting to someone else and living elsewhere. This tragedy has uncovered a whole network of social issues.

DH carried out a simple and completely unscientific experiment this morning

We have a small sheet of the insulating material used in the cladding on Grenfell Tower. He lent it against a wall and applied a blow torch to it. The material was quite slow to ignite and when he took the blow torch away, which he did several times, the fire soon fizzled out, suggesting that the material itself while flammable quickly self quenches when the source of the flame is taken away.

The difference between his experiment and Grenfell Tower, apart from scale, is that the panels were fixed to the walls of the tower with an air gap between the insulating material and the walls of the tower. This air gap acted as a chimney between insulation and wall and the fire was fed and spread by the suction of the 'chimney' and the presence of air.

This effect would have been there whether the insulation was totally non-combustable, partly flammable like the piece of the material DH used, or highly inflammable and suggests that the inspection of cladding on tower blocks should go beyond just checking on the material used but on whether there is an air gap between cladding and the previous outside wall of the block. If there is a gap, then fire breaks should be installed at regular intervals so that the chimney effect that led to the spread of the fire cannot occur again.

I think too much of the publicity about the cause of the fire has been put on the cladding and not enough on the extent that the fire was channelled from floor to floor by defects in the building services that had cable conduits and other services that were continuous from floor to floor without fire breaks at regular intervals and, of course the air gap behind the claddng.

The cladding was made from a material which gave off CYANIDE gas for goodness sake and should never have been used in housing of any sort! Some of the victims were being given antidotes to cyanide.

Does anyone know if that lady on QT last night was correct when she said that the material was £2 per dwelling cheaper than the one which had been recommended!

My understanding, Welshwife was that it was £2 per panel, and £5000 for the whole block.

politicalscrapbook.net/2017/06/fire-station-shut-by-boris-johnson-to-be-turned-into-luxury-flats-by-company-owned-run-tory-donor/

It gets worse.

politicalscrapbook.net/2017/06/tory-council-cuts-affordable-homes-from-iconic-london-building-being-turned-into-millionaire-mansions/