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Grenfell: inquest or public inquiry?

Cav said:
The Inquiry and the Police investigation are completely separate although the process of the former might inform the direction of the latter - which is why some people refused to give evidence at the Inquiry. The Inquiry's Terms of Reference do not include allocating culpability, so far as I understand.
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Not criminal culpability, no, under the 2005 Act. They can, however, bring elements of their findings to the CPS I think.
 
The writer will be anathema to some, but there's a good op-ed by Owen Jones in today's Guardian https://www.theguardian.com/comment...fell-tower-disaster-political-fire-test-fraud
Grenfell Tower is one of the scandals of the century. A company allegedly sought to maximise its profits by deliberately cheating fire tests, deceiving buyers into believing they were safe, and in doing so could have contributed to turning Grenfell Tower into a mass grave – and the biggest loss of life in London since the blitz. Yet this story did not merit a top slot in the political merry-go-round: the troubled court of Johnson and Labour strife has taken up all the space. And here are the questions we should be asking. How could it be possible, in a wealthy nation with self-aggrandising claims to a highly sophisticated legal system, for companies to get away with such deception in the search for profit? There can be few more profound political questions than this.
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On the subject of fire stops Can anyone realistically come up with a design of an effective fire break that when incorporated within the zone of the cladding and insulation would be effective and inconspicuous. Bear in mind the cladding zone is likely to be approx 300mm deep or thereabouts and I suspect for architectural reasons the fire braek can not project beyond the face of the cladding

I propose therefore that no effective fire break is possible and that all cladding should be non combustible FULL STOP

Why is this so difficult to comprehend.

I attended a meeting with Dame Judith Hacket and give my views on Building Regulation compliance checking and certification in this country and told her what a shambles it is relying almost entirely on contractor self certification !!

eddie
 
Lest we forget:

https://www.architectsjournal.co.uk/news/grenfell-inquiry-kingspan-manager-gives-evidence
Heath forwarded the email to colleagues and said: ‘I think Bowmer & Kirkland (multinational blue chip main contractor) are getting me confused with someone who gives a dam [sic]. I’m trying to think of a way out of this one, imagine a fire running up this tower! Any ideas?’
...
In a subsequent response to a colleague at Kingspan, who said Wintech was raising questions about a couple of projects, Heath said: ‘Wintech can go **** themselves and, if they are not careful, we’ll sue the arse of [sic] them.’

Heath was asked about this response at the inquiry on Monday. He said: ‘It was totally unprofessional, it was based on the fact that we were going round in circles with them.’
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Well, I guess "unprofessional" is one word for it.
 
The requirement for non-combustibility over 18m has always been clear; and both posts above are spot-on and highlight just a couple of the things wrong with present utter-mess of attaining an appropriate approach to compliance.

It was the confessions last week of deliberate, wilful falsification of fire testing by both Celotex and Kingspan in the last ten days that really starts to take the lid off, though. I think there is more to be mined from that despicable seam - not just those two manufacturers, but others, and allied products.
 
This tends to reaffirm my belief that you can’t rely on self-regulation, or expect commercial organisations to ‘do the right thing’. If there’s an angle, it’ll get exploited and to hell with the ethical dimension.

And without wishing to derail this thread, I don’t think there’s any evidence that the press is any different.
 
martin clark said:
The requirement for non-combustibility over 18m has always been clear; and both posts above are spot-on and highlight just a couple of the things wrong with present utter-mess of attaining an appropriate approach to compliance.

It was the confessions last week of deliberate, wilful falsification of fire testing by both Celotex and Kingspan in the last ten days that really starts to take the lid off, though. I think there is more to be mined from that despicable seam - not just those two manufacturers, but others, and allied products.
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Did these people get the immunity from prosecution they demanded before giving evidence?
 
Sue Pertwee-Tyr said:
This tends to reaffirm my belief that you can’t rely on self-regulation, or expect commercial organisations to ‘do the right thing’. If there’s an angle, it’ll get exploited and to hell with the ethical dimension.

And without wishing to derail this thread, I don’t think there’s any evidence that the press is any different.
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This is the key point isn't it. Sickening as it is to see how individual firms operated, successive governments knowingly constructed a system in which that kind of behaviour was not just predictable but inevitable. It's not like any of this requires hindsight.

And yeah, press is the same, and the failure of the whole media system is implicated in this: the point was made by many at the time of the fire that it would have been less likely to happen had the local press not collapsed, or if more papers had a specialist housing correspondent. They're both remediable problems that will not get fixed for the same reason the building trade, housing, and fire regulation won't get fixed.
 
You can't expect much from the press esp specialist knowledge.

Keep an eye on the TV reporters, one day you'll see a parliamentary correspondent, next the same person can be called a foreign correspondent. Only a label.
 
I...

..am going to take some time to compose a rational, repeatable-in-public, response to that.

I have been rather involved professionally in a range of post-Grenfell, rectification of ... residential buildings that failed guidance. The things I've seen in that last year or so of defining scope for, and reviewing findings of, very intrusive investigatory work of no small profile - utterly beggars my belief. And the legal circumstances for each heavily circumscribes what I might say there, to just that.

But - what I have seen leaves me ... utterly effing furious, as a conscientious person, as an architect, as a part of the construction industry.
 
I keep running across the results of the post-Grenfell world in the construction industry as part of my job and there is complete and utter confusion as to why changes have not been made, not just to the evacuation strategies, but to the legislation around building these types of building in the future. There is a proposed standard (BS 9991 I think) that will specify pressurisation of lobbies, lift shafts, separation of risers, more evacuation routes etc. for buildings over 18m high, but these are still sitting there as a proposal. Manufacturers of materials will no longer warrant their use in anything but specific use cases and hence the industry has to test, model and debate every intersection, fire stop, joint etc. And this is just the mess we have around new builds where the real issue is how to fix existing buildings with physical changes and improvements as well as proper focus on evacuation rather than 'stay put' which only works in an ideal world and not the real one where firestopping is always compromised to a degree. It all comes down to the same thing though.... the government's lack of desire to act! Because it will, of course, cost money and upset some of their larger backers in the industry. Could a Grenfell happen today? Yep, and moreover it probably will when to a large extent it doesn't need to! This is what you get with alt-right governments led by a 'lovable rogue', they literally couldn't care less.
 
the other thing, is the quality (lack-of!) in construction process. It doesn't much matter how good the specification is, when key elements that have to work together (such is required for fire protection and separation)... are thrown together as fast/cheap as possible - not installed.

No small part of this is also down to decades of inadequate, inept Govt education policies, chasing tables and 'academic achievement' measured by tabulated scoretables / demoralised staff everywhere in Education / vacuous qualifications - all at the expense of not doing a damn thing to properly resource vocational trade schools and ensuring pathways for developing and maintaining Trade skills to a standard that instills pride - and is due respect.

It's what you get when myopic politicians only see Cost, not Value, and about as far ahead as the next election.
 
Horrific. I’m sure I’ve said this before but it’s really hard to properly grasp just how damning it is because you have to maintain a kind of dual focus, on the appalling, deliberately cultivated systemic issues in the one hand and the malign incompetence of individuals on the other. You can see everyone involved getting off as a result. But what a display of absolute sociopathy all round.
 
Today's Guardian has a piece by the first firefighter on the scene. https://www.theguardian.com/comment...nfell-tower-72-people-died-safety-regulations
And disgracefully, there remains no requirement to plan properly for the escape of disabled residents. The government promised to implement, in full, every Grenfell recommendation. And just last month, with the fifth anniversary of Grenfell approaching, it refused. It rowed back on ordering building owners and managers to design personal evacuation plans for all disabled people living in high rises, using excuses including the cost to landlords.

Two fifths of the disabled residents living in Grenfell Tower died that night. I – and every member of the Grenfell community, I am sure – stand in solidarity with the disabled community as we continue this fight for change together.
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I presume there’s sufficient evidence for criminal prosecutions? I personally wasn’t able to get a grip on the hierarchy of culpability reading the overall Twitter thread linked to.
 
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