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Massive Fire in High Rise Apartment in London

T

Timbuktu

Member
Par Score said:
This will go way higher than that. It already implicates Downing Street.

This is a Hillsborough style disaster, without the possibility of a Hillsborough style cover up. I would expect significant jail time, and resignations reaching into the highest levels of government.
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That would imply it fulfils all the requirements of the Building Regs and the failure being with the regs themselves. It will take a while before we know, Southwark only just pleaded guilty over Lakanal House this year when the fire was 2009.
 
J

JoJo UK

Unconfirmed Member
IdreamofHIME said:
Quite a horrific thing to happen. People blaming the emergency services need to ask questions of themselves before lashing out.



I'm pretty sure it's illegal to rent out a property without smoke and monoxide detectors, but nothing for private owners.
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I rent an apartment to private tenants and can confirm the above is a requirement. You also need to have a gas safety certificate (check carried out annually). I have been told this week that this year all rented properties will also need an electrical certificate.
 
M

Mindwipe

Member
chimpden said:
It's predominately social housing, so ultimately the owner is the local council (although it is managed by a housing association). I wouldn't expect criminal charges.
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The (now defunct) company that supplied the cladding might be in trouble, especially if it turns out it was supposed to be fire retardant and wasn't for example.
 
J

JonnyDBrit

Member
Mindwipe said:
The (now defunct) company that supplied the cladding might be in trouble, especially if it turns out it was supposed to be fire retardant and wasn't for example.
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Wouldn't be surprised if the Council tries to claim they were 'misled' on how safe the building was. Even though of course, there's that letter...
 
J

JonnyDBrit

Member
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A

autumnleaf

Member
My mind can't comprehend how you can have a building housing 500-600 people and it not be completely up to the highest possible fire safety standards. How can that happen in 2017 Britain, in London.
 
M

mingo

Member
Fuckkkkkk.... Ive just seen an old school mate who lives in that building on the news. Said he can't find his family...

Edit, misleading headline. Him and his family got out fine. Its other families they can't find
 
W

Wind's Howling

Member
autumnleaf said:
My mind can't comprehend how you can have a building housing 500-600 people and it not be completely up to the highest possible fire safety standards. How can that happen in 2017 Britain, in London.
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You'd be surprised how many buildings don't have the appropriate meassures regarding safety checks, let alone that companies check them once every 6 months. I will be surprised if such buildings even get checked every 5 years.
 
S

Showaddy

Member
spekkeh said:
Not just the local level, personally I doubt if Khan's position is even tenable. Oversight is absolute shambles.
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This is entirely down to Kensington & Chelsea council not the mayors office. And even if it did Khan's barely been in power a year, it'd be Boris that'd have questions to answer.
 
J

JonnyDBrit

Member
spekkeh said:
Not just the local level, personally I doubt if Khan's position is even tenable. Oversight is absolute shambles.
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Khan's been in his office a little over a year - he had little to no influence on the decision making that left the building as it was. Meanwhile Kensington gained its first non-Tory less than a week ago, and the local council is 42 Conservatives out of 54. Add in the Tory led government of the last 7 years, and this is squarely at their feet.
 
T

Timbuktu

Member
frankie_baby said:
Its got nothing to do with khan
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Greater London Authority is responsible for fire through London Fire and Emergency Planning Authority. Boris Johnson closed fire stations and cut fire engines. We don't really know enough to be calling for heads and pointing fingers yet.
 
S

spekkeh

Banned
The mayor is technically still responsible. The current head of the London Fire and Emergency Planning Authority was appointed by Khan.

Now I agree that he doesn't have any real blame, because most of this negligence / corruption occurred during his predecessors tenures, but in the end it did happen on his "watch".
 
C

chimpden

Member
frankie_baby said:
Its got nothing to do with khan
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While I do agree that this isn't Khan's fault, I did feel it was a bit off that in his first TV interview about the fire he tacked on this classless "Come spend some money at Borough Market!" at the end. He should really have cancelled the PR visit to Borough Market and dealt with the more pressing problem.
 
S

seanoff

Member
I fail to see how the building wasnt retrofitted with a fire suppression system when it was upgraded


Here any major work on the structure immediately triggers updated compliance to the current standard. Here that is alarms, suppression, positive pressure fans, emergency lighting, etc etc

Horrible. What a way to go. Whoever is responsible for that building should be hung by the genitals in Oxford St.
 
O

OverBlood 3

Banned
seanoff said:
I fail to see how the building wasnt retrofitted with a fire suppression system when it was upgraded


Here any major work on the structure immediately triggers updated compliance to the current standard. Here that is alarms, suppression, positive pressure fans, emergency lighting, etc etc

Horrible. What a way to go. Whoever is responsible for that building should be hung by the genitals in Oxford St.
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They seemingly just made it look nice from the outside and called it a day.
 
Baki

Baki

Member
chimpden said:
While I do agree that this isn't Khan's fault, I did feel it was a bit off that in his first TV interview about the fire he tacked on this classless "Come spend some money at Borough Market!" at the end. He should really have cancelled the PR visit to Borough Market and dealt with the more pressing problem.
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Squarely Boris fault if this is related to the Mayor's office.

Also the management company is scummy as fuck. Need to be charged with criminal negligence.
 
C

CadetMahoney

Member
RulkezX said:
Utter shite.

The HSE have amongst the most far reaching powers in the country and are not shy to to use them.

If someone is responsible , they'll 100% face jail.
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6 people died in a similar event and no one was prosecuted and no compensation paid out. Just empty platitudes many years later after an inquest. "Lessons will be learned".
 
J

Jonnax

Member
spekkeh said:
Not just the local level, personally I doubt if Khan's position is even tenable. Oversight is absolute shambles.
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Right. The typical technique of conservatism. Cuts and irresponsibility when they're in power. When it starts going to shit, a liberal politician gets voted in and gets blamed for their predecessor's failures. Rince and repeat.

This borough is Kensington and Chelsea. The representatives are the richest of the richest. When it comes to the safety of poor people in a council block I doubt they are going to care much.
Just to the letter of the law.
 
M

Maledict

Member
spekkeh said:
The mayor is technically still responsible. The current head of the London Fire and Emergency Planning Authority was appointed by Khan.

Now I agree that he doesn't have any real blame, because most of this negligence / corruption occurred during his predecessors tenures, but in the end it did happen on his "watch".
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No, that doesn't make the Mayor responsible. The Mayor is responsible for the fire brigades response to the incident, and to the london wide emergency response - but he's not responsible for the fire safety or the building, or the preventative work that should have been carried out.

From what we know, one of the issues has been the ire brigade being unable to get access to the building. Again, that will lie with the property managers not the Mayor. Other than that there hasn't been any issues with the response in technical terms - the fire brigade and emergency planning systems for london are working as they should.
 
S

spekkeh

Banned
Maledict said:
No, that doesn't make the Mayor responsible. The Mayor is responsible for the fire brigades response to the incident, and to the london wide emergency response - but he's not responsible for the fire safety or the building, or the preventative work that should have been carried out.

From what we know, one of the issues has been the ire brigade being unable to get access to the building. Again, that will lie with the property managers not the Mayor. Other than that there hasn't been any issues with the response in technical terms - the fire brigade and emergency planning systems for london are working as they should.
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Sorry I'm not British. The fire brigade is not responsible for fire safety checks?
 
C

chimpden

Member
spekkeh said:
Sorry I'm not British. The fire brigade is not responsible for fire safety checks?
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No. The housing association would be responsible for checks and maintenance. However, it seems like a combination of factors made this the disaster it was, and the HA might have met all their legal requirements. For example, it doesn't seem like you need fire alarms in communal areas and 'stay put' is a generally acceptable approach to managing residents in a fire.

To me it seems the main cause of all this disaster is decades of shitty housing policies by all governments. It will be exceptionally hard to pin the blame on one person/group.
 
G

Gallbaro

Banned
GrizzleBoy said:
I work in a company that provides fire and life safety maintenance for a London borough.

I can't for the life of me understand how a 27 storey building was not mandated to have a central fire alarm system that would alert a person on the 27th floor if the building was in a blaze on the fourth.

I also will say that from the fuckries I've seen subcontractors doing, I wouldn't be surprised if whatever maintenance company the landlords had were just signing log books every month to say things were being the ked regularly without so much as looking at a SINGLE thing. Especially if the landlord doesn't care.

There will be SHITLOADS of court cases.
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In NYC public housing residents literally pull The fire alarm pull stations, strobes, and initiating devices off of the walls/ceiling. Replace them, but they are gone next week.
 
W

Wvrs

Member
People shouldn't have to live in these tower block high rises. They're built on the cheap, overcrowded... when less than 8% of this country is built on, it annoys me that we're shoving people into concrete sardine tins.

Tragic loss of life.
 
D

Diablohead

Member
Oh man, thoughts go out to everyone in that building, horiffic.

As others have asked, how cna a building like that not have some kind of saftey to stop the entire block going up in flames so quickly? so horrible.
 
C

Crispy75

Member
From elsewhere, from someone who's opinion and knowledge of the subject I trust:

This is a very political matter, and we may now partly be seeing the results of decisions where the deciders just didn't care enough. I know the guy who runs London Federation of Housing Co-ops, which includes TMOs (Tenant Management Orgs). For those who don't know, a TMO is similar to a co-op in that it is a democratic structure, but a housing co-op owns its own properties, while a TMO just has a management arrangement. He told me a couple of years ago that everyone who is a fan of co-ops and TMOs thought (and tried to tell) K&C that they were fucking up by putting ALL their properties into the same TMO. A simple democratic structure like that would be appropriate for one block or maybe a few next to each other. The idea you can maintain genuine democratic control when you put all the borough's property in one TMO is absurd. You could try to create some federated structure I suppose, but they didn't. So they ended up with something that was meant to be democratically controlled by couldn't be, thereby losing both the full council oversight and the democratic advantage of TMOs. Basically the democratic element was tokenism - the borough didn't care that it wouldn't work.
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J

JoeBoy101

Member
spekkeh said:
Sorry I'm not British. The fire brigade is not responsible for fire safety checks?
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In the US, the Fire Department is responsible to do a fire alarm inspection every 3-5 years, depending on the buildings record. The Property Owner though is required to do annual inspections at least. If you have fire extinguishers, they need servicing at least once a year, and a fire drill should be preformed every 2-5 years depending.

Ultimately, its on the Building Owner for the fire safety. Only until you reach the fire hydrants themselves is the Owner no longer responsible.
 
Charles Brandon

Charles Brandon

Member
Wolvers said:
People shouldn't have to live in these tower block high rises. They're built on the cheap, overcrowded... when less than 8% of this country is built on, it annoys me that we're shoving people into concrete sardine tins.

Tragic loss of life.
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Many of them are being pulled down. Just down the road the notorious South Acton estate has been demolished. However, many of the residents, if you asked them, wouldn't have wanted to leave it. Trellick Tower, which is round the corner, has a very strong sense of community. People want to live in London, not in the boonies beyond zone 6. The only way to achieve that is to build more of these blocks, although hopefully to a much higher standard. And even then, when they are built, they are still expensive.
 
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