I'd suspect that the access/service charge is already a solved problem and I suspect they don't get to use the pool etc.. - therefore I wouldn't be surprised if we later see some stories in the press regarding this. Yes the 'affordable' section would have otherwise perhaps have gone to either a housing association or some other organisation offering some form of part rent part buy scheme presumably.
Tower block fire - london
- Thread starter robfosters
- Start date
I'd suspect that the access/service charge is already a solved problem and I suspect they don't get to use the pool etc.. - therefore I wouldn't be surprised if we later see some stories in the press regarding this. Yes the 'affordable' section would have otherwise perhaps have gone to either a housing association or some other organisation offering some form of part rent part buy scheme presumably.
Well your asking the the following questions
- was planning followed correctly?
- Was it a failure of the architect?
- Did the architect specify the wrong stuff?
- Were they leaned on to undertake cost cutting?
All based on the information taken from the planning documents and i've admittedly made the assumption that you are member of the public and not party to the specification docs.
I think the term is "poor doors". Lots of apartment blocks in London have different access doors and communal facilities for the affordable/social housing component. There was a big hoo hah about it a couple of years ago.
Yes indeed - that is exactly what I was referring to, I mentioned 'poor doors' in the previous post - might not require a poor door per say though.
It is a fairly practical solution - developers want to offer luxury facilities but they also have to offer some social housing as part of the planning requirements.
In a development with lots of space/separate blocks you can just dedicate a separate block to the social housing part and have a different management company run it. If on the other hand you're building say a single tower block then the solution is to have a separate entrance - this is where the 'poor door' comes in.
Subletting is rife nationally, I imagine its off the scale in London though. I think its a large reason as to why the released figures are currently so off.
Why taken from the planning documents?
As you say your making assumptions - nowhere have i made conclusions, I've just listed possible issues and areas I'm sure an enquiry will look into. It's a basic list of where oversight may have occurred and where blame may be apportioned if needed.
No where did I say the architect/designers were to blame, or the planners, or the government, hence all the "?" At the end of sentences. The only place in fact I've made any assumption is when I mentioned the people installing it installing different stuff to what would have been specified - imo they would probably just have installed what they were given/what was agreed upon - but again, I'm sure any investigation will work out whether they did or not, and if they were to blame.
So no, it doesn't matter if I'm a member of the public or not - the post wasn't drawing conclusions so it doesn't matter.
There is some risk that someone officially registered as a council tennant but subletting could end up in a new flat and the poor family/lodger who never actually had a proper lease in the first place gets screwed - there does need to be some sort of provision for people in that scenario - though whether you then deal with them as illegal immigrants is another matter - the government will probably not want to get hammered in the press for deporting some of the victims.
I said you were asking questions, that's exactly what I said. I never suggested you were making conclusions. If I am wrong that you didn't base those questions on the information in the released planning docs then I apologise.
Its also possible that there are people who are listed as missing who aren't because they weren't living there and there are people who are missing but not listed because they shouldn't have been living there so there is no record of them.
Well I would imagine this is in order to get a fuller perspective of the exact numbers living in the block. They need to know what level of illegal subletting (important note: this doesn't automatically infer illegal immigrants) was going on. Since people are unlikely to step forward for fear of prosecution, an amnesty makes sense.
yup and this is part of the problem with getting an official death toll, the authorities don't know for sure how many are in there - there are also friends/family members who might have been visiting or living with official tenants etc.. some of these 1 or 2 bedroom flats had 6 people in
Oh ok, no, it was just a post on my phone voicing my agreement to Orionauts post that the biggest thing we need to take away from this is how we make sure it doesn't happen again.
I'm not pretending to be an expert on the subject, or have any inside knowledge. The list was just things I could think of at the time that may or may not be sticking points/where blame may or may not be apportioned in any investigation.
Oh ok, no, it was just a post on my phone voicing my agreement to Orionauts post that the biggest thing we need to take away from this is how we make sure it doesn't happen again.
I'm not pretending to be an expert on the subject, or have any inside knowledge. The list was just things I could think of at the time that may or may not be sticking points/where blame may or may not be apportioned in any investigation.
My personal feeling as to where the investigation will go is towards a lack of clarity in legislation and guidance of detailing external rain screen cladding, I don't think any one party will be blamed. The current stance of the manufacturer is that its suitable, the product does have a Class 0 rating for for surface spread of flame but the Class rating applies to lining. In truth there isn't that much information or guidance in the approved docs in protecting a building from its own external cladding. There are clauses in there to protect adjacent buildings from fire spread and there is guidance on protecting voids but it talks about internal voids.
I've said in this thread before that I think they will ban the use of non retardant cladding though because the public will demand it. The problem is though is that, that wont be enough, fire protection needs a holistic solution and with better detailing that product would have been fine to use externally.
The thing is, was that detailing a requirement of the approved documents in the context of rain screen cladding, I cant find it. I know though that when we have overclad hi-rise we have specified intumescent barriers within the air gap (at every floor level) and vertically also, this would have, in theory prevented the rapid spread of the fire up the cladding.
The other questions which people seem to have stopped asking is what on earth happened to the mechanical smoke extract system in the escape stairway? Its meant to either vent the smoke or pressurise the stair core to prevent smoke getting into it. Early reports said it failed completely.
Then there is the question of "stay in your apartment" policy, its standard because residential stairs aren't designed to allow 100% evac, should this change?
There are many questions other than the cladding.
Someone is pulling out all the stops to try and defuse the social anger that has been growing over the last couple of years. As gestures go, that's a pretty humungous one. I wonder how many people who were previously talking about injustice will reverse their positions based on this? Not many, I suspect. It's the "permanent" part that staggers me the most. So what will happen to Grenfell tower? Brought down? Re-fitted?
He wont dare. He'll just move on to criticising something else, I suspect. The only people who will openly criticise this on a public platform are those who don't depend on public goodwill for their careers (e.g. MPs and councillors). Criticising this will be a death sentence for anyone in public office.
Probably. Except for the one whose fridge it was.
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Daily Mail users absolutely livid about them being rehoused in plush new apartments in Kensington
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...-survivors-homes-2billion-block.html#comments
"it'll be like Baghdad in a month or two"
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...-survivors-homes-2billion-block.html#comments
"it'll be like Baghdad in a month or two"
Deleted member 66701
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Deleted member 66701
Wow - so much for the right trying to portray that only the left are envious of those more fortunate than themselves!
It is run of the mill social housing though.
that is thanks to the developer cutting a deal with them which seems to have meant selling them for the cost of building them... whether than is out of pure altruism or they've been squeezed a bit by the Corporation of London, or perhaps they've been promised a sweetener elsewhere (Corporation of London after all is involved with other projects and this developer prob wants to stay in their good books or get some advantage/favour later on)
It is a different local authority though - they (the City/Corporation of London) already build social housing in other parts of London, though this time I guess they've not had to purchase any land - as the block is part of an existing development. Seems like good value for money and a good deal overall tbh...
ironically 10 million was the cost of this cladding/refurbishment project in the first place...