Grenville tower exclusive. No safety checks carried out.

Just heard this breaking story on LBC radio in the UK, so unfortunately do not have a link yet.
LBC is a political/current events phone in radio show and is a reliable and good source of information.

They have just broken the story the safety checks after the 2016 refurbishments were never signed of by royal Kensington and Chelsea borough council.
This means that had those safety checks been carried out, including fire safety there is a possibility this cladding would not have passed.

Now.. here is where it could be tricky because the council own the building but it managed by TMO, so who is ultimately responsible for this?
A £10 million pound refurbishment and safety checks were never carried out!

Common regulations in development and refurbishment, need checks carried out throughout the process, this obviously wasn't done.
And will also mean anyone with insurance would automatically invalidate it, meaning those people would now have no cover.

Heads need to roll now.. someone needs to be jailed for this.

Rip to those that died.

I hope they have TONS AND TONS of extra cash just laying around collecting dust because the lawsuits are never going to end on that one... fail by so many different people heads are going to roll on that one

a reply to: Misterlondon

All works of this nature and of this scale would require an inspection and test plan which would require eveidnce such as a completed form duly signed that an given activity was performed on a sub part of the construction/insallation.

Eg there would be an inspection and test plan for the electrical system.

Example: Does all the cabling and terminations comply with the design specifications? yes/ no.
did cabling for the fire alarms comply with the contract specification? yes/no - sign off or not signed off
Did the terminations of the fire alarm cable comply with specifications yes no
Have all fire alarm 'x' been installed? yes/no.
Was no.1 fire alarm tested as per the speficiation in the contract?
Was testing of fire alarm 'no 1' witnessed by a representative from the cleint yes no?

Were all fire alarms tested, found to be successful and signed off by the contractor and the cleints represenative? yes no

This applies to all concrete for costruction
the construction of the building
The electrial system
fire alarms
glazing
fit our
etc
etc

Building the size like Grenfell tower should have fire assessment carried out in every three years I think? That need to be signed off by the Housing Association the Council and the Fire Brigade. That would be like 5-6 assessment since 2000?

No way anyone would sign off on that building no bloody way!

originally posted by: szino9
Building the size like Grenfell tower should have fire assessment carried out in every three years I think? That need to be signed off by the Housing Association the Council and the Fire Brigade. That would be like 5-6 assessment since 2000?

No way anyone would sign off on that building no bloody way!

With the exception of the residents that raised concerns, Grenfell = complete failure by all parties involved.

In the frame so far:

Central Govt and in particular George Osborn (Chancellor) Gavin Barwell (Housing), Boris Johnson (Mayor) and Theresa May (Home Secretary) possibly David Cameron who as PM of the day, should have had oversight of his ministers and their actions or lack thereof
Austerity cuts, shutting fire stations and reducing staff levels. Sitting on fire safety report, reducing policing numbers, treating experienced and knowledgeable security services staff with contempt. Treating residents with contempt, creating twisted and broken housing market, social engineering to remove and prevent the poor from living in central London.

LBKC Housing, Building Control and Planning depts.
a) At tender stage, should have ensured all works/materials were compliant under current rules.
b) Snagging and sign-off - could not have had comprehensive checks including use of scaffolds etc for testing at height

Contractor (Rydon) and sub-contractors (curtain wall installers Harley) and any other sub-contractors used for the electrical and heating upgrades.
It is unclear at this stage who these other contractors may have been and why Rydon either did not have suitably qualified staff on the ground carrying out checks at each stage or was happy to turn a blind eye to sub-standard materials or incomplete works/incompetency, eg installing fire-breaks and back-filling holes caused through internal installations.

KCTMO
a) Failed to take residents concerns seriously
b) Failed to carryout both risk assessments and regular reviews of fire-safety .
c) Failed to carryout basic estate management functions of regularly inspecting the building and actioning any works necessary, including ensuring all fire fighting equipment or fire safety measures were fit for purpose and removing any hazards (eg furniture left dumped in communal areas). How often did the housing officer walk the entire building, checking if the stairs were safe to use and fire doors were not propped open? How often did the housing officer arrange an inspection and invite residents, fire safety officer, local councillor, police, any other local stakeholders to attend?

London Fire Service
As far as I am aware, they inspected the building and sent LBKC/KCTMO recommendations for required works. I do not know when this was done nor if the recommendations did in fact constitute an initial official warning. If it did, was there any time limit on when works should be completed and if so, did LFS conduct another inspection immediately after expiration of the date and then serve notice on the council for non-compliance?

If the fire proves to have been an arsonist attack, the fire-starter/s
What was the intention/motivation and if this was to render the building uninhabitable, how would he/she/they have known the curtain wall was combustible with fire-breaks not installed?

It was an awful tragedy but can anyone tell me why the government are giving the families 5.5k each? If my house burns down will they give it to me?

a reply to: Misterlondon

GRENFELL.

Other than that, top notch commentary.

originally posted by: biggilo
It was an awful tragedy but can anyone tell me why the government are giving the families 5.5k each? If my house burns down will they give it to me?

Because they are complicit in this situation due to cutting the red tape of bureaucracy:

cutting-red-tape.cabinetoffice.gov.uk...

"Businesses with good records have had fire safety inspections reduced from 6 hours to 45 minutes, allowing managers to quickly get back to their day job."

metro.co.uk...

"Former Prime Minister David Cameron promised to abolish the ‘albatross’ of ‘over regulation’.
He said in 2012 that a Conservative government would: ‘Kill off the health and safety culture for good’"

webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk...:/discuss.bis.gov.uk/focusonenforcement/files/2013/08/CFOA-Response-PDF.pdf

www.mirror.co.uk...

"The Sunday People has learned that the number of fire safety audits dropped from 84,575 in 2010-11 to 63,201 in 2015-16, a 25 per cent dip. Those in London fell from 14,651 to 13,709, a drop of 6 per cent."

This is the same profile that has happened to all the other crisis situations in this country. There was the "mad cow disease" scare because they "cut the red tape of bureaucracy" and allowed spinal and brain tissue from carcasses to be recycled as animal feed. Then there were the various railway crashes like Potters bar which happened due to a failure to conduct inspections by privatized firms:

en.wikipedia.org...

With this tower block, management of the properties was transferred from the council to a ownership association. Fire safety inspections that were previously conducted by the Fire Brigade were skipped. In the USA, the fire marshal gets to review all planning permission applications to ensure that roads are wide enough for fire trucks, there are enough fire escape routes and that there is an adequate supply of water for fire hoses.

originally posted by: stormcell

originally posted by: biggilo
It was an awful tragedy but can anyone tell me why the government are giving the families 5.5k each? If my house burns down will they give it to me?

Because they are complicit in this situation due to cutting the red tape of bureaucracy:

cutting-red-tape.cabinetoffice.gov.uk...

"Businesses with good records have had fire safety inspections reduced from 6 hours to 45 minutes, allowing managers to quickly get back to their day job."

metro.co.uk...

"Former Prime Minister David Cameron promised to abolish the ‘albatross’ of ‘over regulation’.
He said in 2012 that a Conservative government would: ‘Kill off the health and safety culture for good’"

webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk...:/discuss.bis.gov.uk/focusonenforcement/files/2013/08/CFOA-Response-PDF.pdf

www.mirror.co.uk...

"The Sunday People has learned that the number of fire safety audits dropped from 84,575 in 2010-11 to 63,201 in 2015-16, a 25 per cent dip. Those in London fell from 14,651 to 13,709, a drop of 6 per cent."

This is the same profile that has happened to all the other crisis situations in this country. There was the "mad cow disease" scare because they "cut the red tape of bureaucracy" and allowed spinal and brain tissue from carcasses to be recycled as animal feed. Then there were the various railway crashes like Potters bar which happened due to a failure to conduct inspections by privatized firms:

en.wikipedia.org...

With this tower block, management of the properties was transferred from the council to a ownership association. Fire safety inspections that were previously conducted by the Fire Brigade were skipped. In the USA, the fire marshal gets to review all planning permission applications to ensure that roads are wide enough for fire trucks, there are enough fire escape routes and that there is an adequate supply of water for fire hoses.

I'm not sure if they are complicit or not. Regardless even if they were it would be between them and the insurance companies. You have posted various links there but failed to answer my question. Plenty of people are losing their homes and lives in house fires but the rest of us have to go through our insurance and get no handouts from the tax payer.
Is the truth not that the hard left blatantly politicised this and the government are giving handouts to try and combat it?
All the anger at the Tories too when it was Labour in charge of alot of it....

a reply to: Misterlondon

Yes, the residents have been saying this since the fire happened, and before. Their safety was completely ignored for years despite them complaining, writing to the government and even running a public blog about it to raise awareness. They even stated in the blog that it would only take a disastrous event like a fire where huge numbers of lives were lost before anyone will take notice of how criminal their landlords are being. Now the government tries to cover up these crimes. They were threatened by the council and private landlords to shut up or be taken to court. They didn't have money to get their own solicitor so had no choice but to remain the the death trap, ignored.

This is social murder.

link to blog- says it all really.

a reply to: biggilo

Quite simply because the tower was dangerously unsafe, the government and authorities knew this for years, despite complaints from residents they did nothing, just threatened them with legal action to shut them up. Tories also voted against laws that force landlords to make homes safe. This is because most Tories are landlords themselves. Read the resident's blog, it may open your eyes as to why this case is different. Don't go to MSM to get your facts.