Huge fire in Grenfell Tower - West London

[Bletchleyite]

Temporary or permanent? If temporary, there may be little option - there aren't necessarily enough Council homes available locally.

 

[jon0844]

Temporary or permanent? If temporary, there may be little option - there aren't necessarily enough Council homes available locally.

Depends if people buy into the Corbyn idea of confiscating private property that is sitting empty (even though reports suggest there aren't as many buy-to-leave properties now as there were).

 

[Tetchytyke]

Source: David Lammy Labour MP for Tottenham

I've no idea of the specifics in this case, but generally speaking that is exactly what happens.

If the council offer you suitable accommodation and you reject it, then they have no obligation to find you anything else. What they define suitable and what you define suitable is normally very different, but they're the ones with the power. Litigation doesn't put a roof over your head tonight.

I can well believe that the Council are doing this, because they won't pay the going rate for temporary accommodation in the Borough.

It is standard practice for Kensington and Chelsea Council to do this. When Derek Myers was CEO of that council he bought houses in Peterborough for council tenants in his borough. His view was that they should move somewhere cheaper.

Derek Myers is now the Chairman of Shelter. Yes, that Shelter. Remember that when they come chugging. They're a shower of [redacted].

 

[Tetchytyke]

reports suggest there aren't as many buy-to-leave properties now as there were

You used to get a 50% Council Tax reduction if your house was registered as vacant.

Councils can now charge a Council Tax premium of up to an additional 100% if your house is registered as vacant. RBKC charge a 50% premium, meaning your Council Tax is 150% if your house is registered as vacant.

I'll let you decide how this might affect people's willingness to declare their house is vacant...

 

[jon0844]

You used to get a 50% Council Tax reduction if your house was registered as vacant.

Councils can now charge a Council Tax premium of up to an additional 100% if your house is registered as vacant. RBKC charge a 50% premium, meaning your Council Tax is 150% if your house is registered as vacant.

I'll let you decide how this might affect people's willingness to declare their house is vacant...

That's a fair point.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Depends if people buy into the Corbyn idea of confiscating private property that is sitting empty (even though reports suggest there aren't as many buy-to-leave properties now as there were).

Councils have no ability to do that, it would require primary legislation. In the meantime a few hundred people need homes.

 

[DarloRich]

Temporary or permanent? If temporary, there may be little option - there aren't necessarily enough Council homes available locally.

stick them in a local hotel. Send the bill to: Mrs T May C/O 10 Downing Street,Westminster, London SW1A 2AA

I should sincerely hope that all hospitals are seen to be controlled environments for purposes of the required treatments of those admitted.

Give it a rest Paul. May messed up by not meeting the victims and their families until she was shamed into doing so. We know it, everyone in the country knows it and you know it.

 

[vrbarreto]

You used to get a 50% Council Tax reduction if your house was registered as vacant.

Councils can now charge a Council Tax premium of up to an additional 100% if your house is registered as vacant. RBKC charge a 50% premium, meaning your Council Tax is 150% if your house is registered as vacant.

I'll let you decide how this might affect people's willingness to declare their house is vacant...

If this is anything to go by then there are a lot of vacant properties in Kensington and Chelsea

http://metro.co.uk/2017/05/11/map-reveals-shocking-number-of-empty-homes-across-london-6630121/

I do wonder if the council has tried to rehouse people locally and the estate agents or landlords have said that they don't want 'that sort of people' in their properties.

Zoopla shows plenty of 2 or 3 bedrooms flats to rent for under £2,000 a month which seems to have been the going rate for a flat in the tower

http://www.zoopla.co.uk/to-rent/pro...lts_sort=newest_listings&search_source=refine

Say £1,200 x 112 families then it would cost £134,000 per month for accommodation in the short run at least..

 

[me123]

stick them in a local hotel. Send the bill to: Mrs T May C/O 10 Downing Street,Westminster, London SW1A 2AA

Looking at the prices of the average hotel in Kensington, I can only second this motion.

 

[DarloRich]

Looking at the prices of the average hotel in Kensington, I can only second this motion.

i understand the council are following procedure. However one very pleasant benefit of this procedure will be that the victims are broken up and moved around the country. That should be very useful in lessening the focus on the TORY run local authority (and TORY government) AND reduce the financial burden on the no doubt hard stretched LA should the kind offer of housing 100's of miles from London be rejected.


Cynical? Moi?

 

[WelshBluebird]

Councils have no ability to do that, it would require primary legislation. In the meantime a few hundred people need homes.

And yet they can forcefully buy properties for much much under the market rate when it comes to pulling down old estates!

 

[w0033944]

I've just watched the 'Panorama' programme and it revealed something that I'd been unaware of up to now, backed up seemingly by footage taken at the time, namely that the original fire (i.e. the fridge in a flat on the Fourth Floor) had been successfully extinguished, this leading to the continued advice to residents to stay in their flats and await rescue. What happened after that i.e. how did that cladding catch fire remains unanswered.

I wonder if this has parallels to the series of train fires on both East and West Coast routes during the late '40 and early '50, including Beattock? From memory, they were caused by glowing ash from locos or discarded matches which slowly burned through insulation within carriages before gaining access to air and flashing-over. These were exacerbated by the use of Rexine cladding which was coated with the recently-devloped nitrocellulose lacquer. Unfortunately, the lacquer was incredibly flammable. Lacquered Rexine was promptly removed from UK rolling stock and replaced by much less flammable untreated Rexine.

 

[bramling]

everyone in the country knows it

I wouldn't bank on that...

... discussion taking place in my office as I write this, along the lines of "sick and tired of hearing about this now, if my house burns down then I don't expect the PM to turn up and sort everything out for me".

 

[Darandio]

I wouldn't bank on that...

... discussion taking place in my office as I write this, along the lines of "sick and tired of hearing about this now, if my house burns down then I don't expect the PM to turn up and sort everything out for me".

Surely those in your office understand this was a pretty extreme turn of events?

 

[AlterEgo]

I wouldn't bank on that...

... discussion taking place in my office as I write this, along the lines of "sick and tired of hearing about this now, if my house burns down then I don't expect the PM to turn up and sort everything out for me".

Blimey, I wouldn't fancy working there!

 

[w0033944]

Blimey, I wouldn't fancy working there!

Me neither! Personal property can be replaced; the best part of 100 lives can't. Has this country become so selfish and mercenary that the attitude in bramling's office is commonplace?

 

[DarloRich]

I wouldn't bank on that...

... discussion taking place in my office as I write this, along the lines of "sick and tired of hearing about this now, if my house burns down then I don't expect the PM to turn up and sort everything out for me".

agreed - however this was a tower block that turned into a London based follow up to the Towering Inferno killing an unknown number of people in quite horrific circumstances. It was slightly more than a "normal" house fire!

 

[bramling]

Surely those in your office understand this was a pretty extreme turn of events?

Yes, don't get me wrong there is no shortage of sympathy for the victims and those directly involved.

However, the political capital being made out of it appears to be heavily grating now. For people who own, manage and insure their own property the issue of the PM's actions simply lacks salience.

 

[Ianno87]

Me neither! Personal property can be replaced; the best part of 100 lives can't. Has this country become so selfish and mercenary that the attitude in bramling's office is commonplace?

What bramling suggests is certainly not the theme I've been getting in tea point discussions on the subject, inside or outside of the workplace.

Most people seem able to recognise the unique tragedy of the huge loss of life in this incident, and the way in which (for whatever reason - to be determined) the 'system' appears to have failed the victims - deceased or alive. Whatever comes out will be an important lesson for society as a whole. That's why it's different.

 

[w0033944]

Yes, don't get me wrong there is no shortage of sympathy for the victims and those directly involved.

However, the political capital being made out of it appears to be heavily grating now. For people who own, manage and insure their own property the issue of the PM's actions simply lacks salience.

I think there will always be those who are happy to use tragedies to make a point. For my part, I think austerity has had an influence on thinking and is therefore possibly a contributing factor, but I've tried to avoid any appearance of using this for political point-scoring. For one thing, as I understand it, ther requirement for fire inspections to be conducted by the Fire Service was removed under Blair; for another, back when the Fire Committee in the House was writing letters to Ministers during the Coalition years, one Lib Dem Minister responded with this staagering example of arrogance and complacency:

I have neither seen nor heard anything that would suggest that consideration of these specific potential changes is urgent and I am not willing to disrupt the work of this department by asking that these matters are brought forward.

(Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-40330789)

 

[bramling]

What bramling suggests is certainly not the theme I've been getting in tea point discussions on the subject, inside or outside of the workplace.

Most people seem able to recognise the unique tragedy of the huge loss of life in this incident, and the way in which (for whatever reason - to be determined) the 'system' appears to have failed the victims - deceased or alive. Whatever comes out will be an important lesson for society as a whole. That's why it's different.

The vibe I'm picking up, which I share, is that people want to get to the bottom of what happened, and for steps to be taken to address the underlying causes, ideally as quickly as possible. This is exactly what should happen with the announced public inquiry, my only concern would be these can sometimes drag on for years which isn't acceptable in this situation where other buildings could be similarly affected.

As I said previously, the constant political point-scoring that's now going on seems to be turning people off.

 

[w0033944]

As I said previously, the constant political point-scoring that's now going on seems to be turning people off.

I appreciate and agree with that view; my confusion was caused by my evident failure to understand the gist of your colleague's opinions, which I thought were along the lines of wanting survivors to shut up and stop making a fuss about loss of property.

 

[Bletchleyite]

And yet they can forcefully buy properties for much much under the market rate when it comes to pulling down old estates!

The law is the law, however silly it may be. It can't be changed just like that, and these people need housing now.

 

[Groningen]

If relocated to Preston and you have your job in the London area. Who is gonna pay for transport and the 6 hours of commute between those 2 cities every day.

 

[RichmondCommu]

I see in this morning's news that Adele has turned up at a fire station, photographer handily supplied by somebody, to 'thank the firefighters'. Is she acting as official representative of the United Kingdom I wonder, or was that Lily Allen's title?

I think it's safe to suggest that this terrible incident, its appalling aftermath and the consequent fundraising efforts are all very much in the public eye. These celebs could do with ensuring that their efforts don't start to look like cheap advertising.

I'm no fan of Adele but its worth remembering here that Adele grew up in a poor neighborhood in North London so not so different from those living in Grenfell Tower. Given her huge record sales I don't Adele needs to resort to advertising, cheap or otherwise.

 

[Railops]

The vibe I'm picking up, which I share, is that people want to get to the bottom of what happened, and for steps to be taken to address the underlying causes, ideally as quickly as possible. This is exactly what should happen with the announced public inquiry, my only concern would be these can sometimes drag on for years which isn't acceptable in this situation where other buildings could be similarly affected.

As I said previously, the constant political point-scoring that's now going on seems to be turning people off.

2 guys I work with who are as left as they come and only vote labour were on about how they were sick of Corbyn's naked opportunism and his "on message" and on cue tears.
No tears for Manchester, London Bridge, or Westminster.

 

[Dai Corner]

I'm no fan of Adele but its worth remembering here that Adele grew up in a poor neighborhood in North London so not so different from those living in Grenfell Tower. Given her huge record sales I don't Adele needs to resort to advertising, cheap or otherwise.

2 guys I work with who are as left as they come and only vote labour were on about how they were sick of Corbyn's naked opportunism and his "on message" and on cue tears.
No tears for Manchester, London Bridge, or Westminster.

some would say Adele and Corbyn are 'virtue signalling'

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtue_signalling

Virtue signalling is the conspicuous expression of moral values done primarily with the intent of enhancing standing within a social group. The term was first used in signalling theory, to describe any behavior that could be used to signal virtue—especially piety among the religious.[1] Since 2015, the term has become more commonly used as a pejorative characterization by commentators to criticize what they regard as the platitudinous, empty, or superficial support of certain political views, and also used within groups to criticize their own members for valuing outward appearance over substantive action.[2][3][4] This more recent usage of the term has been criticized for misusing the concept of signalling and encouraging lazy thinking.

 

[Bromley boy]

I'm no fan of Adele but its worth remembering here that Adele grew up in a poor neighborhood in North London so not so different from those living in Grenfell Tower. Given her huge record sales I don't Adele needs to resort to advertising, cheap or otherwise.

She doesn't live there any more though, does she? Neither does Lilly Allen.

These virtue-signalling millionaires should shut up, retire to their mansions and (anonymously) put their hands into their pockets if they really want to help.

The tragic loss of life is a separate issue. Of course we need to get to the bottom of what happened but, in the end, the dead don't require rehousing.

Rightly or wrongly the predominant view I've been privy to over the last few days, from those with mortgages to pay, is "how many celebrities and politicians would turn out and offer to help if my house/flat burned down?".

 

[GusB]

She doesn't live there any more though, does she? Neither does Lilly Allen.

These virtue-signalling millionaires should shut up, retire to their mansions and (anonymously) put their hands into their pockets if they really want to help.

The tragic loss of life is a separate issue. Of course we need to get to the bottom of what happened but, in the end, the dead don't require rehousing.

Rightly or wrongly the predominant view I've been privy to over the last few days, from those with mortgages to pay, is "how many celebrities and politicians would turn out and offer to help if my house/flat burned down?".

Rock - Hard Place.

You might come from a poor background, having had an awful time and decide that you never wish to go back there, for whatever reason. On the other hand you have people who come from a poor background, yet don't ever forget where they came from, even though their success puts them in a situation far removed from where they began. Seems to me like you're damned if you do and damned if you don't.

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

In a disaster such as this, a replacement home to go to is surely the most civilised thing in Britain in 2017 for affected families, wherever it may be.