Grenfell Tower: In Memory of the 72 who lost their lives

Five years ago today, 72 people lost their lives in the Grenfell Tower disaster because elected Cllrs, Kensington & Chelsea Council and its arms length, Tenant Management Company,  didn’t believe spending £4,074 per tenant was worth the extra cost for non combustible cladding.

The 72 were victims of a cost savings exercise and five years on nobody has been held responsible.

“Grenfell was home … a place of refuge … a joined-up community whose members worked, played, prayed and lived together … And many of them died together.”

We remember the 72.

£149m has been spent on the inquiry, so beloved of Government’s. Five years on we are still no closer to knowing who is responsible within the council of Kensington & Chelsea and its arms length tenant management organisation.

All we do know from watching the inquiry on a regular basis is there has been “a merry go round of buck passing“.

A crime has been committed. This was evidently clear as the sun climbed over the horizon, and the charred remains of Grenfell Tower appeared to the world.

“Grenfell was home … a place of refuge … a joined-up community whose members worked, played, prayed and lived together … And many of them died together.”

A councillor remarked with regards to Grenfell that a proposed £6m refit might seem “a terribly nice thing to do” but it was wrong to divert money from elsewhere in the borough. In 2013, Kensington and Chelsea had £241m in reserves.

A few days after the fire, a handful of project documents from the tenant management organisation were leaked. They contained discussions about changing the cladding panels in order to cut costs. Switching from non-combustible zinc panels to combustible ACM cladding represented a saving of £293,368, a saving of £4,074 per tenant, loved one who died.

It’s clear the lives of the 72 were not worth the extra money.

The disregard of the tenants by Cllrs, the Council and management of the tenant management organistaion, is one which we believe is not just isolated to Grenfell, but many other districts within the country.

Today as you go about your business, please do spare a moment for the 72, as they were victims of decisions made by elected councillors, Kensington & Chelsea Council and the tenant management organisation and others.

The Shepway Vox Team

Dissent is NOT a Crime

Image By Natalie Oxford https://twitter.com/Natalie_Oxford/status/874835244989513729/photo/1, CC BY 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=59913134