Weststander
Well-known member
Newsnight covering this right now. Governments first knew in the 70’s and “results from a striking test in 2001”.
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[News] The Grenfell Report.
- Thread starter Leekbrookgull
- Start date
Newsnight covering this right now. Governments first knew in the 70’s and “results from a striking test in 2001”.
- Aug 24, 2020
- 7,110
I know. I'm watching it.
It's systemic failure. Long-term. No party political stuff. This happened across various governments. People not doing their jobs. Not realising the danger of what their test results meant.
I find it profoundly depressing.
Weststander
Well-known member
Corruption/criminality imho from the manufacturers. These are huge businesses making billions annually. The enquiry uncovered senior people knowingly on the make pre fire.
Extremely arrogant eg Kingspan’s response today, they can afford the very best law firms to fight their corner.
The CPS must see this through.
But I’m cynical that people will serve time in prison.
- Aug 24, 2020
- 7,110
It's that cladding. It crops up time and time again.
I frequently drive past the blocks of flats springing up at Shoreham (especially the ones directly opposite the Lighthouse Car sales).
They may look brick built, but they aren't. The 'bricks' are in fact, large panels of cladding (made to look like bricks), fixed onto the bare concrete. I've seen them being attached. Presumably to save on cost of materials.
I wonder about it. I wonder about it.
Weststander
Well-known member
There must be products that aren’t immediately combustible eg 100’s of blocks have been reclad since, plus of course what are high standard northern European nations using where they’re not into brick and blocks?
You’d imagine that architects, consulting engineers, contractors wouldn’t now touch risky products with a barge pole. Insurers would also have a say.
- Aug 24, 2020
- 7,110
'There must be......'
'You'd imagine.......'
What if that were the sum total of all the checks that happened pre-Grenfell? Or more to the point, post-Grenfell?
Do you trust architects, consulting engineers, contractors, etc to challenge the use of cladding products on site? Or do they just look after their own interests and use whatever is provided without a murmur?
Or to put it another way, do you trust architects, consulting engineers and contractors with your life?
Did that include the American manufacturer and how can they be punished by the British govt or court system?
Bold Seagull
strong and stable with me, or...
Through their UK entity: Arconic UK Holdings Limited
- Jan 3, 2012
- 17,355
We have a Prime Minister who is a former very effective head of the Crown Prosecution Service. I was talking to my brother-in-law, who has been a fairly senior bod in the CPS, at a family party last week who confirmed how good he was.
And Starmer has the sort of values which I hope will mean this is robustly followed through.
there was a clip on the news last night too of Cameron talking about cutting red-tape. Maybe all this will militate against the “health and safety is a nonsense” nonsense. Red tape is needed and needs to be enforced!
Also a damning indictment of decades of 'deregulation' - the populist calls to cut red tape and the much-mocked health-and-safety considerations, and leave everything to 'the market' and higher standards supposedly achieved via competition.
Now everyone is promising that 'lessons have been learnt' - until the next time that politicians and property developers prioritise profits over people.
Now everyone is promising that 'lessons have been learnt' - until the next time that politicians and property developers prioritise profits over people.
I don't want to send this thread too far away from the recognition of the fault and systemic corruption behind the Grenfell tragedy but I do agree with these quotes in terms of the level of corruption, corporate power, lobbying, government inertia and complicity etc etc that is driving the food chain scandal/s. I'm sure this isn't the only example either and if there's any lesson at all from this horror it is trying to ensure that tangled liabilities / disasters already unfolding / waiting to happen like Grenfell are deterred in the future by higher levels of corporate accountability and routes to call them out. It probably also needs a lower level of societal tolerance of such things in the first place but in this noisy world of social media shouting I have no idea where that will come from. As other posters have said, it is all very depressing that a story akin to a third world "building collapses / corrupt developers etc" story can happen within what we naively consider as a more advanced civil society.