Massive Apartment Fire in London

[bob48]

Apart from the sad loss of life and injuries - people are getting very angry as more of the circumstances are brought into the open. No fire alarms switched on - no sprinkler system - poor insulating materials used that were, apparently, highly combustable.

[Gusington]

This is looking more and more like the Triangle factory fire from ~1911 in Manhattan.

[Staggerwing]

Apart from the sad loss of life and injuries - people are getting very angry as more of the circumstances are brought into the open. No fire alarms switched on - no sprinkler system - poor insulating materials used that were, apparently, highly combustable.

How do things like that come to pass? Were there no proper inspections? Who is ultimately responsible for upkeep? I've heard that many of these kinds of buildings are subsidized housing called 'council estates'. Who or what is the 'council' referred to in the name? Are they responsible for making sure safety codes are adhered to? Can this 'council' be held liable in the UK for loss of life resulting from negligence?

[JudgeDredd]

Apart from the sad loss of life and injuries - people are getting very angry as more of the circumstances are brought into the open. No fire alarms switched on - no sprinkler system - poor insulating materials used that were, apparently, highly combustable.

How do things like that come to pass?

Money. Also, I've heard that fire regulations have not been updated to take into account new materials being used in the building trade (the cladding on the outside of the building).

Were there no proper inspections?

Apparently the last inspection was around December 2015.

Who is ultimately responsible for upkeep?

It depends on who this building belongs to. For example, My mum owns a ground floor maisonette at the bottom of a block of flats. She owns that - but the rest of the apartments are private landlords. The council "rent" those apartments from the private landlords to house people who cannot afford their own house - an absolutely diabolical situation brought about by the Tory party in the 1980s.

I believe in this case the building is either owned or comes under the responsibility of Kensignton Council

I've heard that many of these kinds of buildings are subsidized housing called 'council estates'. Who or what is the 'council' referred to in the name?

I believe it's Kensington Council

Are they responsible for making sure safety codes are adhered to?

I believe it falls under their remit to make sure when they are housing people, that those buildings meet the standards required.

Can this 'council' be held liable in the UK for loss of life resulting from negligence?

If it falls under their control and they are responsible, then this is possible. However, if it turns out that the building had up-to-date inspections and if it is discovered that the building met building and fire regulations, then I'm not sure how they can be held accountable.

What's happened is terrible. But let me mention here - and everyone will hate my socialist views - but you have a ridiculous system in the UK where the councils (local authorities) have a responsibility to make sure people who cannot afford housing actually have somewhere to live.

In the 1980s, Margaret Thatcher introduced a system where people who were renting their accommodation from councils had the ability to buy those properties - at a considerably reduced price. Those houses were sold and people were able to make quite a bit of money from it.

However, what it did was remove the council's housing stock (councils are local authorities). By removing the local authorities housing stock, the councils then had to go to the private sector for their housing. As the council's had an obligation to house people who could not afford to buy their own homes, the private sector was pretty much allowed to charge what they like.

This policy - in my view a disastrous policy has had several knock on effects

• An over inflated private rental sector
• An over inflated private buying sector
• A HUGE increase in the welfare state in the UK where a massive chunk of welfare being paid is on housing benefit - a payment given to people to allow them to live somewhere

The policy is a disaster resulting in an over inflated welfare system, a private sector where people who cannot get a mortgage to buy their own house falling back to the private sector and finding, actually, that they cannot afford to rent. Wages have not kept up with the costs of living resulting in many people not being able to get on a private buying sector or a private rental sector. Kids in the UK are looking to be staying with their parents for decades...I mean the average age of a child being able to move into a home (bought or rented) in the UK has gone up from 22 in the 80's and 90s to 40 years old.

In short, there's very little housing in the UK in total. Successive governments have failed to produce enough housing helping to over inflate a market that is slowly but assuredly cutting people out of that market. As there's a lack of housing, perhaps corners are cut in order to actually house people.

Huge swathes of the UK (particularly inner city areas) are owned by foreign investors. This results in high rents being charged and worse, those landlords allowing people to live in squalor for a quick buck.

Don't believe me? Lets have a look at where my mum lives.


This is a privately owned area (by owners from many, many different countries...my mum knows because she's been part of the group trying to contact them to get funding from them for a factor to come in and look after the place) where the council HAVE to house people. These blocks of flats are privately owned by people pretty much all over the world who charge the council a small fortune for rent to house people there (KNOWING the council has to house people).

I feel the need to point out that this is a housing area in the fifth largest economy in the world.

So unfortunately, I suspect that this building in London is one of many (across the country) and an urgent investigation needs to be made in order to updating fire regulations - AND advice...people were following advice posted all around this building telling them to stay put if there's a fire and wait for the emergency services.

Private landlords (both foreign and local) have to be brought to boot on the state of the buildings they provide. Some of the places people have to live in the UK are absolutely diabolical and I'd feel guilty housing my dog in them.

[bob48]

So far, 6 victims recovered, 11 more located by not able to be recovered as yet. 60 remain unaccounted for. Very grim and upsetting situation.

[Pete Dero]

So far, 6 victims recovered, 11 more located by not able to be recovered as yet. 60 remain unaccounted for. Very grim and upsetting situation.

I fear almost 100 lives are lost.

30 confirmed deceased and close to 60 still missing with little or no hope for them.

[JasonPratt]

Holy Christ, JD!  :o :wow: My brain had trouble even processing what I was looking at there. Diabolical indeed.  :'(

It's a crying shame that a tower full of people will end up having to be holocausted to draw attention to reform here. But the more crying shame is that the chances of reform still seem small.  :pullhair:

[undercovergeek]

I know there's a baying mob now but if the council and health and safety executive say it must be built to XXX specifications and the builders did so then it's not their fault

And I find it hard to believe that a building of this nature doesn't also need signing off by the fire service who obviously did

The regulations are what need changing and as JP said, it's horrible that this has had to happen to highlight it

[JudgeDredd]

I heard this morning - and I have no guarantee this is correct - that the product used for cladding on the outside of the building had a B2 rating in Germany which equated to ubtreated wood and that the same product was banned in the US.

As I said - I can't confirm this, but it's what I heard on the BBC this morning.

But UCG is right - if the building regs and fire regs were met, then there's no blame really to apportion here. Though Thornbury's statement the other night on Question Time about fire and building regs not being up to date (and therefore missing out on new products coming to market) could be a valid one.

Anyway - tragic.

[BanzaiCat]

Seems to me that Tory policy, while having the best of intentions, has done completely the opposite effect. Good luck getting rid of those idiots. I wonder if it will ever get to a point where the government will (or even can) nationalize such properties to get the weasels overseas out of the picture?

[Gusington]

CNN reporting that the local neighborhood town hall has been 'stormed' by protestors looking for answers about the missing.

[bob48]

Not only that, but there will be a lot of people who live in similar buildings and will want some answers.

[Staggerwing]

This morning I heard that the 'cladding' on the outside of the building could be one of two different kinds. One is a polyurethane material sandwiched between sheets of aluminum and the other similar but using a fire-retardant mineral in place of the polyurethane. The former is considered unsuitable for use on buildings such as the one that caught fire but could have been used in place of the latter to save money. Considering aluminum itself will burn if heated enough all I could think of when hearing about it was how the Hindenburg was also actually brought down by the aluminum-doped covering over the airship. It caught fire and spread the flames much quicker than the hydrogen lifting gas could ever have done on it's own.

[Ubercat]

And I'd figured that it was some Muslims setting a fire. Good thing that I was wrong, though I'm surprised that they don't appear to have thought of it, yet. With the lack of access to firearms and explosives, it's an alternative to rented vans and sharp objects.

[undercovergeek]

Cause unknown yet uber

But if it was a Muslim Isis would have claimed responsibility by now