| Jack_ |
15-06-2017 05:29 PM |
Sorry but the 'don't politicise this' cries are complete bull****, and here's why:
Quote:
Tories reject move to ensure rented homes fit for human habitation
Labour amendment to housing bill, aimed at holding landlords to account, is defeated as minister claims it would push up rents
Conservative MPs have voted against proposed new rules requiring private sector landlords to ensure their properties are fit for human habitation.
A Labour amendment to the government’s housing and planning bill, designed to ensure that all rented accommodation was safe for people to live in, was defeated by 312 votes to 219 on Tuesday, a majority of 93.
“The majority of landlords let property which is and remains in a decent standard. Many landlords go out of their way to ensure that even the slightest safety hazard is sorted quickly and efficiently,” said the shadow housing minister, Teresa Pearce, who proposed the amendment.
“So it is even more distressing when we see reports of homes which are frankly unfit for human habitation being let, often at obscene prices.”
Pearce said that the condition of some rented accommodation would not be tolerated in other sectors, citing reports of mouldy walls in privately rented properties.
“Where else in modern day life could someone get away with this? It’s a consumer issue. If I purchased a mobile phone or a computer that didn’t work, didn’t do what it said it would or was unsafe I would take it back and get a refund,” she said.
“If I purchased food from a shop and it was unsafe to eat I would not only get a refund but there is a high possibility the shopkeeper could be prosecuted. Yet if I rent from a landlord, perhaps the only available property for me, and it was unsafe to live in then I can either put up or shut up. In a market where demand outstrips supply renters lack basic consumer power to bargain for better conditions.”
The government has been heavily criticised for attempting to rush its controversial housing bill through parliament, last month quietly tabling an amendment to the bill that set a maximum of five-year terms for new council tenancies.
The bill will offer discounts of up to £102,700 in London and £77,000 in the rest of England to people renting from housing associations who want to buy their homes. The policy will be partly funded by requiring councils to sell the top third of their most valuable council homes from their remaining stock.
The local government minister, Marcus Jones, said Pearce’s proposal would result in “unnecessary regulation and cost to landlords” that would deter further investment and push up rents for tenants.
He said: “Of course we believe that all homes should be of a decent standard and all tenants should have a safe place to live regardless of tenure, but local authorities already have strong and effective powers to deal with poor quality and safe accommodation and we expect them to use them.”
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The Guardian
Quote:
Grenfell Tower: Tory minister declined to include sprinklers in fire safety rules as it could discourage house building
'We believe that it is the responsibility of the fire industry, rather than the Government'
The former Conservative housing minister warned against increasing fire safety regulations to include sprinklers because it could discourage house building.
As the death toll from the Grenfell Tower blaze rose to 12, it emerged Brandon Lewis, who was recently promoted to immigration minister, declined in 2014 to force building developers to fit sprinklers.
A sprinkler system would have "undoubtedly" saved lives at the Grenfell Tower blaze, the managing director of the Fire Protection Association told The Independent.
"Whether they'd have stopped that fire spreading at the speed it did up the outside of that building is another matter," Jon O'Neill said.
"But to have had sprinklers in that building would have created an environment where it would have been easier to rescue people and increase survivability."
Mr Lewis declined to bring in regulation forcing developers to fit sprinklers because he said it was not the Government's responsibility.
He told MPs: “We believe that it is the responsibility of the fire industry, rather than the Government, to market fire sprinkler systems effectively and to encourage their wider installation.”
He said the Tory Government had committed to being the first to reduce regulations nationwide.
He added: “The cost of fitting a fire sprinkler system may affect house building – something we want to encourage – so we must wait to see what impact that regulation has.”
Earlier in the Westminster Hall debate to mark Fire Sprinklers Week, he had admitted: "Sprinklers work. We know that. No one can deny it.
"They are an effective way of controlling fires and of protecting lives and property."
Paul Fuller, chief fire officer for Bedfordshire and chairman of the Fire Sector Federation, said sprinklers could have helped.
He told BBC Radio 4's World At One: "We know that sprinklers are effective. Also, sprinklers will make the environment more survivable by containing the fire and containing the smoke.
"But they are not a total solution. We also have to make sure that passive protection measures - things like the structure of the building and the fire resistance of the building - are all properly in place as well."
He added that the federation has been calling for a review of part B of the building regulations "for a number of years now" to ensure they "meet the needs of a modern society using modern methods of construction and who use buildings differently from the way we used to 30 or 40 years ago".
In 2013 the All-Party Parliamentary Fire Safety & Rescue Group called for a review of safety regulation after six people died and more than 20 were hurt in a 2009 blaze at Lakanal House in Camberwell.
A government spokesman said that following the Lakanal House fire, the coroner recommended the guidance relating to fire safety within the building regulations be simplified, work he said is ongoing.
The coroner also asked government to write to councils encouraging them to consider retro-fitting sprinklers, he said, adding that it had happened.
The spokesman added: “Our thoughts are with the residents and families of everyone caught up in this dreadful event. We stand ready to help in any way possible as the emergency services continue to stabilise the situation.
“The London Fire Brigade will be conducting their investigation and at this stage it would not be appropriate to comment on the cause of the fire.”
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The Independent
Quote:
Gavin Barwell: Theresa May's new chief of staff faces questions over delayed tower block fire safety review
Mr Barwell was housing minister when the review was again delayed, fire expert confirms
Theresa May’s new chief of staff faced questions on Wednesday over his role in a delayed fire safety review, after a deadly blaze tore through the Grenfell Tower in London.
Gavin Barwell failed to give the review the green light during his tenure as housing minister, despite it already having waited for years.
The fire expert behind a report calling for the desperately needed safety appraisal, said he had spoken to Mr Barwell earlier this year and the then-minister told him no decision on the review had been taken.
Former chief fire officer Ronnie King said: “Mr Barwell said he was still looking at it.”
Ex-MP Mr Barwell lost his ministerial job after being beaten by Labour in his Croydon constituency at the general election.
But after Ms May sacked her two chiefs of staff, Nick Timothy and Fiona Hill in the fallout of a botched campaign, Mr Barwell was hired as their replacement.
He was housing minister for 12 months before the election, but even before he came to office a review into the fire safety regulations had been outstanding for years.
It was called for by the All-Party Parliamentary Fire Safety & Rescue Group, after six people died and more than 20 were hurt in the 2009 blaze at Lakanal House in Camberwell .
But Mr King, the honorary administrative secretary of the group, said the review its report recommended had been shelved by successive ministers over the past four years.
Speaking to LBC radio, he said the group had looked at fire suppression measures in all the tower blocks with similar designs and noted that there were around 4,000 buildings with no fire sprinklers fitted.
He added: “Our group recommended that due to the speed that the fire spread in Lakanal House, that building regulations should be reviewed. It's nearly 11 years since it has been reviewed.
“Successive ministers since 2013 have said they are still looking at it.”
Mr King confirmed that earlier this year, Mr Barwell told him he was still considering the proposals.
He added: "Mr Barwell said he was still looking at it and was preparing to meet with the All-Party group. That's when the election was called and the meeting never happened.”
Hundreds of firefighters were sent to 24-storey Grenfell Tower in north Kensington, as large plumes of smoke billowed above the capital after the blaze broke out in the early hours of Wednesday morning.
Witnesses spoke of “terrifying” scenes, with some residents suggesting they heard no alarm go off when the fire began. At least 30 people have been taken to five hospitals and six are confirmed dead.
London Mayor Sadiq Khan has said there are "questions that have to be answered" after residents of the tower were told to stay in their flats in the event of a fire.
Mr Khan condemned the "bad advice" given to residents of the West London tower block that was engulfed in flames overnight, killing several inhabitants and leaving many trapped inside the burning building.
A newsletter to residents in 2014 said the "stay put" policy worked because the block had been designed according to “rigorous fire safety standards”.
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The Independent
Quote:
Grenfell Tower cladding that may have led to fire was chosen to improve appearance of Kensington block of flats
Material would help make the flats look better from outside, planners noted
The cladding that might have led to the horrifying blaze at Grenfell Tower was added partly to improve its appearance.
During a refurbishment aimed at regeneration last year, cladding was added to the sides of the building to update its look. The cladding then seems to have helped the fire spread around the building, allowing it to destroy almost the entirety of the structure and kill people inside.
And that cladding – a low-cost way of improving the front of the building – was chosen in part so that the tower would look better when seen from the conservation areas and luxury flats that surround north Kensington, according to planning documents, as well as to insulate it.
“Due to its height the tower is visible from the adjacent Avondale Conservation Area to the south and the Ladbroke Conservation Area to the east,” a planning document for the regeneration work reads. “The changes to the existing tower will improve its appearance especially when viewed from the surrounding area.”
The document, published in 2014 and providing a full report on the works, makes repeated reference to the “appearance of the area”. That is the justification for the material used on the outside of the building, which has since been claimed to have contributed to the horror.
The materials used were chosen “to accord with the development plan by ensuring that the character and appearance of the area are preserved and living conditions of those living near the development suitably protected,” according to the same report.
A number of conditions were attached to the 2014 decision to approve the plan – many of which related specifically to the material used in the cladding, so that the council could ensure the "living conditions of those living near the development" were "suitably protected".
The council noted that the cladding would also improve insulation, helping keep sound and cold out from the building, and improve ventilation. An environmental statement said that the "primary driver behind the refurbishment" was to address the insulation and air tightness.
"The reclad materials and new windows will represent a significant improvement to the environmental performance of the building and to its physical appearance," the planning application reads. "The design of the scheme as a whole has fully considered policy requirements, expectations and aspirations, fully taking into consideration the immediate and wider surroundings, particularly focussing on creating a wider environment that works as a coherent place," another part of the same document says.
That planning application concludes with a statement that "the development will provide significant improvements to the physical appearance of the Tower, as well as the environmental performance and the amenity of its residents".
Rydon, the company behind the refurbishment work, said the cladding and other changes had been made to help with "improving thermal insulation and modernising the exterior of the building".
A statement from Rydon after the work was finished noted that "rain screen cladding, replacement windows and curtain wall façades have been fitted giving the building a fresher, modern look".
That statement included a quote from Nick Paget-Brown, the leader of the council, who remarked on how happy he was to see "first-hand how the cladding has lifted the external appearance of the tower".
That public statement after the completion made no reference to insulation, only discussing the change in the external appearance of the building.
The refurbishment work that added the cladding cost £8.6m and finished in May last year. Both before and since that time, residents have repeatedly complained about the safety of the block, but were assured that there was no problem.
Councillor Judith Blakeman said questions would now be asked in the wake of those assurances.
“If the cladding was partly responsible for the fire we need to know what the specification for the cladding was and why it suddenly just went up (in flames) in about five minutes, because it should have been fire resistant, surely,” she said.
Ms Blakeman lives across the road and said she heard about the fire at 5am on the radio.
“I just rushed outside,” she said. “Neighbours had been watching it all night, they said the cladding went up like a nightdress by a fire – it just went whoosh.
“This is obviously part of the big refurbishment that finished about a year ago.”
The tower was built in 1974. But the refurbishment work brought a number of changes – new areas were added to the building, as well as the cladding.
Experts have repeatedly warned that the addition of cladding, which is regularly used to refresh old or unsightly buildings, can help spread fire. It can work like a chimney, they have warned, bringing up air that allows it to spread across a building quickly.
Chartered surveyor and fire expert Arnold Tarling, from Hindwoods, said the process can create a 25-30mm cavity between the cladding and the insulation.
“It produces a wind tunnel and also traps any burning material between the rain cladding and the building," he said.
“So had it been insulated per se, the insulation could fall off and fall away from the building, but this is all contained inside.”
He said not all insulation used in the process is the more expensive non-flammable type.
“So basically you have got a cavity with a fire spreading behind it," he added.
Angus Law, of the BRE Centre for Fire Safety Engineering at the University of Edinburgh, said: “Early media reports suggest that this event has similarities with other fires that have occurred recently around the world.”
He added: “The UK’s regulatory framework for tall residential buildings is intended to prevent the spread of fire between floors and between apartments.
“If spread of fire does occur, as has happened at Grenfell Tower, the consequences are often catastrophic.”
Construction firm Rydon, which carried out a £8.6m refurbishment of the exterior of Grenfell Tower last year, installing cladding and new windows, said its work “met all required building control, fire regulation, and health and safety standards.”
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The Independent
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DCRnsuBXYAAw0bJ.jpg:large
It is wholly the responsibility of the state to ensure that buildings like this are regulated and safe to inhabit and the government must absolutely harness some of the responsibility for what has gone on here. Their reckless deregulation and cost-cutting, coupled with the very worst excesses of capitalism - corporate irresponsibility, gentrification and greed - putting profit before people, has caused this. They have blood on their hands and if there is any justice whatsoever the individuals who failed to adequately protect this building will be charged with manslaughter.
The only people who don't want this incident politicised are those who want to defend their precious party at all costs. Well I'm sorry, but if the residents have spent several years politicising this cause - knowing full well something like this was inevitable - and continue to do so in interviews after the fact, it will be. The only people who get a monopoly on whether or not this is a political issue are the residents. And nobody else.
And finally:
:rolleyes: |
