Posted By: djh

Posted By: JontiIf you local elections are on a town borough, village level where the electorate is up to maybe 10'000 people who elect the local committee then you get local people who are interested in local issues being elected.

The people tend to be local, although not all are. But the ones that get elected also are elected as members of a party by and large. There are very few independents and some of those are disguised party members. So even though they're interested in local issues to some extent they also have their eye on national policies to a great extent too.

The problem with proportional representation is you can only vote for a party which locks in that which you claim FPTP does, where as it is better at a local level to be able to vote for someone you know and trust

There are many types of voting system (see https://www.electoral-reform.org.uk/voting-systems/types-of-voting-system/ for examples) and some allow you to vote for individuals as well as parties. But in the UK we get to vote for named individuals who we know we do not trusthttp:///newforum/extensions/Vanillacons/smilies/standard/cry.gif" alt="" title="" >

My MP lives over an hour away and there are lots of those who have no connection to the constituency they stand in. And yes there are lots of systems but in the end you vote for either a person which is a variation of first past the post or a party which is on a proportional system.

To get back to the fire ... The summary of this week's evidence is very scary, I thought. It also happens to mention the involvement of some companies we've been discussing.

https://www.insidehousing.co.uk/insight/grenfell-tower-inquiry-diary-week-60-you-could-have-an-exact-repeat-of-the-dubai-fire-in-any-number-of-buildings-in-london-73724

About a year ago, I wrote elsewhere:
"While the Inquiry is currently naming and shaming the ‘professionals’ in the Grenfell ‘refurbishment’ who did their masters’ bidding to circumvent well established systems to contain and escape from any Fire, it must move on up to spotlight the political Leaders, the corporates and their shareholders in whose ‘interest’ such cheating is routinely part of the big-building industry. And beyond, to the mean politicians of the 1980s who set the whole enduring ethos, and the grim theorists who gave them voice – now thankfully dead."

As shevek says, the enquiry ploughs on, ever closer to the real crux, which I consider to be my last sentence above - all else was sanctioned by and follows from that. So far the govt has, astonishingly, given abject apology for its failure (under various parties in power) in supervising the Building Regulations 'system' - as if the govt didn't deliberately and knowingly dismantle all meaningful supervision. Way to go - there's a lot more to own up to still.

On the 'grim theorists', for whom Pinochet's Chilean government and 1980 constitutional lock-in (only just finally re-unlocked)
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/oct/22/chileans-pinochet-constitution-referendum
was their greatest success, see
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Democracy-Chains-history-radical-stealth/dp/1911344684/ref=sr_1_1?crid=374HBBK8VEO45&keywords=democracy+in+chains&qid=1640091196&sprefix=democracy+in+chasins%2Caps%2C1704&sr=8-1

But the Tower was built in the early 1970’s, it never had a wet riser from the day it was built, a key piece of the fire fighting systems in tower blocks, this was noted in Dr. Lane’s report. So it would seem the adherence to good practice and regulations considerably predates “margaret thatchers anti-society ideology of the 80’s”.

I’d be much more interested in having the fire service explain why they’d never flagged such a major failing over the years since the tower was built and if in fact they had why it was never acted upon.

The 2005 fire safety order act replaced the 1971 act (under which the fire brigade issued “fire certificates after inspection, again it’d be interesting to see those inspections by the fire brigade and the recomendations therein, especially in respect of the wet riser( on the night of the fire the crews had to run hoses up stair wells ( compromising fire doors) to fight the blaze , had there been a wet riser they’d have just gone to the hose reel on the floor and fought the blaze with the buildings own initial supply vastly speeding up the initial response)

After 2005 there would have been a responsible person designated to oversee the compilation of a fire risk assessment for the building, again shortcomings should have been noted and addressed.

The whole thing is a dogs dinner going back to the day the tower was built. Lots of cosy relationships between public bodies ensuring no waves were made.

The question of compartmentation issues should have been especially of interest to any inspector after the Lakanal House fire in 2009, where the removal of asbestos products used to ensure compartmentation but alledgedly no replacements being fitted led to the spread of the fire , which incidentally started with a failing tenants electrical device.
Compartmentation and stay put in the opinion of a fire officer i spoke with have been used as a convenient method of satisfying fire safety, apparently in the true sense, a dedicated and otherwise unused area would be created at strategic points in a building that acted as safe refuge and gave rescue crews a first port of call when evacuating people , the theory being this specially created area would be custom built and be untouched by tenants unless there was a fire , could easily be inspected and maintained. Once this was evacuated then the crews would go flat to flat checking for anyone to make it to the “safe haven”. The use of blanket stay put policies saves having to build such refuges ( in a tower block it would mean losing a flat on each floor) and relies on the compartmentation of each flat, which is difficult to control given tenant behaviours and lifestyles.
To effectively prove a flat is fully comparmented is nigh on impossible without extensive and often destructive inspection and remediation, which in older blocks is even harder to the extent that in reality you’d need to move out occupiers to do the works which may be prohibitively expensive.

What’s at risk of being lost in the Grenfell inquiry is that UK fire safety is really very good, Grenfell was the result of endless failures and poor management, the focus should be on what went wrong for that one event , then look at the reasons behind each failure point.

Fire exited the flat it started in through a non fire retardent infill panel fitted to a window for a fan.
Windows weren’t fire stopped
Cladding has been deemed to have the wrong insulation, but it’s also been noted that many of the intumescent fire stops in the cladding were fitted poorly into gaps larger than they were designed for.
The fire service didn’t have the facilities it should have done to fight the fire , wet riser, defective lift.

The list is almost endless.

It really does seem as though there is plenty of effort going into protecting the reputation of social housing and those that work within it and even more effort going into placing the blame on the private sector. Where was the oversight from the buildings managers?

I'm puzzled why I've only just learned of this. Apparently RBKC have admitted liability for some deaths at Grenfell in a court case. Why hasn't this made the news?

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-62354354

The story says there are lots of other cases pending, so hopefully that will persuade RBKC to start co-operating in proving the responsibility of the other players, to minimise their own costs.

But I'd still like to see somebody from every organization involved in this tragedy sent to jail, with the assumption being it's the person in charge, unless they can prove their organization's part was done without their personal knowledge or connivance or reasonable anticipation of consequences.

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2022/oct/30/show-me-the-bodies-how-we-let-grenfell-happen-review-damning-account-of-deregulation

I got the book Tom mentioned and have started reading it. But it's slow going; I can only read it for half an hour or so at a sitting and then I get so angry (and frustrated and disappointed) that I have to stop and do something different.

Today there was a news story about a young boy who died because he had to live in a rented dwelling with severe mould. Another case where the coroner is writing to the housing minister, but I expect nothing will be done just as nothing has been done about fire safety despite many similar reports. The mould case does seem to be a bit different though, since there is government guidance that seems fairly clear and so it seems the housing association has not followed it. So hopefully prosecution can be faster in this case.

I am very pessimistic that anything will change. Parliament has already passed all the necessary legislation to have prevented both the Grenfell disaster and the death of the young boy, but legislation is useless if it is not enforced. It is a result of an over centralisation of political power coupled with a very low standard of politicians.

Posted By: Peter_in_HungaryIt would be interesting to know the cause(s) of the mould

That's a pattern, I think, in such failures in this little-understood (by public and officialdom) modern arena of higher moisture production, higher heating and somewhat reduced ventilation/leakiness (all compared to say 100yrs ago). Where legal liability ramifications are high (a death in this mould case, the complete demolition and rebuild of 'leaky' pioneering PH school in Dartington Devon), everyone's fighting to obfuscate causes and deflect blame, so cool lesson-learning diagnosis doesn't get a chance.

As far as the PH school, I'm sure it wasn't 'leaks' (as in water getting thro the roof), but accumulating interstitial condensation bue to probable reliance on the old gradient of varour resistivities rule-of-thumb (outer layers of the sandwich 3x (or 5x some said) less resistive than inner layers). The origin of that rule was untraceable when I searched t'internet; even cos like Warmcel who were promoting it couldn't say where it came from; when I had access to WUFI I found it made no difference either way. Luckily no one uses that rule any more - except bloomin' Warmcel have recently revived it, now refusing to allow installers to use their stuff unless the construction is certified to comply. Or presumably a WUFI Certificate in lieu.

Posted By: fostertom"Under the updated housing health and safety rating system (HHSRS), environmental health inspectors will be told to consider detailed “behavioural factors”, such as whether residents are taking enough steps to ensure their property is heated and ventilated,

That is interesting. As a Landlord, if your tennant is set upon not following best practice and using fans, trickle vents etc. it would seem unreasonable to punish the landlord.

As I said, in relation to the case mentioned above, I'd be interested to see what the adjoining properties were like and what if any of the issues were behavioural.

The way some tenants choose to live has to be seen to be believed, combine that with a building that has little resilience to damp/condensation/mould and you’re onto a hiding to nothing. I’ve had tenats complain, but then you find they’ve got “friends staying” and you have 6 adults in a small 2 bed flat, removing trickle vents taping them over and refitting vents is not uncommon. They won’t use extractor fans, indoor clothes drying. List is endless.

The social sector is notoriously overcrowded and as its often tenant instigated, by either having extra children or moving relations in, it’s not the landlords responsibility. In the case mentioned , they were in a 1bedroom flat.

It’s all very well making landlords responsible for dealing with tenant behaviour, but how does that deal with overcrowding , my tenancy agreements have occupation limits , partly to deal with possible future issues, where excessive number of people in a flat can cause issues. Purely as a way of showing thati’m aware of how over occupation can cause problems and said limits are a reasonable way of managing them. Then you have the issue of will tenants heat their property or choose to save money.

Councils don’t like HHSRS as it’s for them expensive to do a proper assessment and they don’t like that they have a statutory duty to deal with any Class 1 hazards identified. Especially if these are a result of problems in common areas or the fabric of a building split into leasehold units. They’ve done the assessment on a flat, socaction would be against the landlord of the flat, but their lease may be such that they cannot do anything to the fabric of the buidling or the common areas. Whislt not applicable to social providers. There is a problem with converted buildings where units are sold off and the freeholder just disapears over the years. My council will state they don’t have the resources to do the assessment in order to avoid getting involved in a hugely expensive process of having to do the works and try to trace the freeholders and get their money back. If there’s an area of the law that needs changing its this, so that there’s a mechanism for the leaseholders or council to take control of such a freehold at negligible cost and minimal expense, so that proper management can be put in place.

Is it really possible to protect tenants from their own actions once they’ve been informed of what their actions may cause?

The flat where the fire started in grenfell had 3 people living in it, alledgedly unrelated so was effectively an hmo if so, but wouldn’t have complied with hmo regulations.

I’ve ordered the book previously mentioned , i’ll be interested to see what viewpoint has been taken.

Posted By: Jonti it is clearly up to the landlord to ensure the property is being used appropriately.

I would imagine most landlords would see that differently and expect tenants to stick to tenancy agreements which would likely include a no sub letting clause.

I cant see how its reasonable for a landlord to have to visit their property(ies) every few weeks to check the tenants not moved a mate or two in to help with the rent.

I just looked at https://www.gov.uk/guidance/safety-in-high-rise-residential-buildings-accountable-persons

In the section about "Clarity about who is accountable" I don't believe the list of interested parties is broad enough. It should at an absolute minimum include the residents of the building and their representatives.

More broadly I believe that the names of the accountable persons should be a matter of public record open to all. There's far too much secrecy in property law in this country.