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Awful news this morning. There's a tragedy unfolding.
Last edited by: VxFan on Mon 19 Jun 17 at 12:47
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Ruddy Hell, That has to be the very worse fire I have ever seen since 9/11. Having seen pictures of it looking like a roman candle, immediately one thinks there has been a very severe failure (or non existent) fire retardant and containment failure at work here.
Looks like the newly installed cladding was a major factor.
Last edited by: Zero on Wed 14 Jun 17 at 08:20
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I find it fascinating how Sky News has managed to become a live audio visual incarnation of the Daily Mail.
Its lurid gutter level journalism and media of the very worse kind.
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"In another post written in November 2016, they said:
“It is a truly terrifying thought but the Grenfell Action Group firmly believe that only a catastrophic event will expose the ineptitude and incompetence of our landlord, the KCTMO (Kensington and Chelsea Tenant Management Organisation), and bring an end to the dangerous living conditions and neglect of health and safety legislation that they inflict upon their tenants and leaseholders."
tinyurl.com/y94rkdca
Details of refurb
tinyurl.com/yaqmlaeo
Last edited by: madf on Wed 14 Jun 17 at 09:40
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Fire still vigorous on one floor as I write. 50 reported hospital admissions but the final death toll will surely be high. The building looks as if it will collapse before it can be taken down.
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Horrendous. The fire suppression system must not have been working for this to take hold like that. And the cladding probably helped it spread - although that is speculation.
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Stairwells full of smoke suggests something seriously wrong with the design/implementation.
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Its an old building i bet not even after the refurb many new fire regs like better compartmentation, no sprinkle system etc. It seems many of the residents weren't happy about the fire safety of the tower block.
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And the rapid spread up the tower suggests the cladding played a part. You'd normally expect a fire to spread internally?? I think the cladding had zinc in it - which from my days of O level chemistry I know will burn easily. But surely cladding on the outside of a building should have some fire resistance!
Saw a photo of a safety sign for the tower that said to stay in your flat if there's a fire.... Well that seems to have been poor advise for some.
It must be a tough decision when you decide jumping to safety from high up on the tower is better than staying and hoping the fire service gets to you.
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A resident on Sky News just now said his neighbour on the fourth floor told him that it was his fridge that "exploded" and started the fire.
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I always think back to Damien Day in Drop the Dead Donkey with his Bloodied plimsoll and Dimbles the teddy bear.
Last edited by: Timeonmyhands on Wed 14 Jun 17 at 20:32
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Tas happened before: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_Lakanal_House_tower_block_fire
I used to 'hang out' in that area (especially on the roof!!) as a young goat.
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There will be a few people in the management company frantically googling prison conditions and sentencing guidelines tonight.
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Heard reports that a ruptured gas main prevented firefighters getting to higher floors and the utilities company had problems finding the valve to isolate it.
One guy who thought he was a gonner was crawling on the floor and saved by a firefighter also on the floor tugging on his foot to get him to stop and follow him out!
Not usually one to say that someone has to be punished, but if there is negligence here then the full weight of the law should be applied.
I also thought the trend was away from these high rise monstrosities and in to lower density houses? The millions paid on refurbishing these flats could have built quite a few terraced houses or semis. Of course land has to be found also.
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>> I also thought the trend was away from these high rise monstrosities and in to
>> lower density houses? The millions paid on refurbishing these flats could have built quite a
>> few terraced houses or semis. Of course land has to be found also.
>>
Although I have not done it recently, when I used to fly in and out of Heathrow I was always surprised at how many green areas there are in London.
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>>Although I have not done it recently, when I used to fly in and out of Heathrow I was always surprised at how many green areas there are in London.
Planning laws in this country restrict the land available for building on and favour large construction companies.
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>> I also thought the trend was away from these high rise monstrosities and in to
>> lower density houses? The millions paid on refurbishing these flats could have built quite a
>> few terraced houses or semis. Of course land has to be found also.
There's certainly a trend away from hi-rise in social housing. However priority seems to be removing 'mid rise' deck access blocks; wall type places like Stonebridge. Contrariwise there's a lot of private towers springing up.
Issue here must be how fire spread. Whole place looks like a roman candle or chimney; how did that happen?
A recently updated block, albeit half height, is opposite car park I use for work. There's been an obvious fire in one flat at around level 4 which is gutted. Some above are scorched/smoked but rest seems unaffected.
Last edited by: Bromptonaut on Wed 14 Jun 17 at 22:21
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I was listening to a building expert on radio this afternoon. Apparently he has campaigned for many years regarding the building regulations relating to exterior cladding on buildings. Current regs stat that the exterior of the cladding has to be fire resistant but insulation material do not as long as it is protected by an exterior fireproof layer . Polyurethane foam and other inflammable materials are commonly used as insulation.
It seems clear that the fire spread upwards via the cladding.
It looks as thought the builder may be right. They complied with building regs. The regs however are inadequate
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I know someone in inner London's planning department. Tells me they've no alternative other than high-rise to meet the housing needs, as there ain't the land available for any other option.
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Reducing the need might help!
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We gotta make a new life. You know where? Underground. You should see it down there - hundreds of miles of drains - sweet and clean now after the rain, dark, quiet, safe. We can build houses and everything, start again from scratch.
What's so bad about living underground eh? It's not been so great living up here, if you want my opinion.
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You beat me too it my friend.
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Watching the news last night the penny dropped for Mrs ON. She said "Now I realise why you got us to the muster station so quickly on the cruise ship when the alarms went off at 6am". After the problem was resolved (toaster fire) and we were returning to our cabin passengers were poking their heads out of their cabins asking what was going on. If it had been a serious fire they would become the missing and the dead. Having fought fires both in ships and ashore the golden rule is get out fast and then sort out what is going on.
I make no apologies for preaching to you lot but one day you might remember it at a crucial time.
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Thanks ON. It does focus you a bit. We have no more than a couple of smoke alarms; I think we should at least get one of those extinguishing blanket things for the kitchen, and given the layout of the house I was thinking about something like this (rope ladder, link below) as well. There's no way out if downstairs is on fire other than a drop from a bedroom window, and even that probably means falling through, or more likely getting stuck in, a really spiky pyracanthus. Not so clever really.
www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B00005OU7B
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I have a dry powder fire extinguisher in our utility room, I would not attempt to use it until I had everyone out of the house, (Mrs ON, bungalow) and assessed the situation. The garden hose might slow things down until Trumpton arrived.
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It appears that the advice they were told on hearing a fire alarm was to stay put. That's if the alarm went off, several said they heard none.
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>> It appears that the advice they were told on hearing a fire alarm was to
>> stay put. That's if the alarm went off, several said they heard none.
>>
I don't and wouldn't live in a tower block, a ship is similar in many ways, try finding your way out of a ship in thick smoke when you are not 100% sure of its layout. Getting out fast is the secret, for that you need good alarms and people alert to the potential problems. Neither are found in tower blocks. In the example I mentioned above the alarm system was excellent, the passengers were not aware of the implications. It is a difficult balance on a cruise ship, a light hearted safety briefing as part of the adventure but don't frighten the punters.
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>> try finding your way out of a ship in thick smoke when you are
>> not 100% sure of its layout.
>>
On a similar note, I always count the rows of seats in an aircraft between me and the emergency exit both forward and backward from my seat and always check where the nearest fire exit is in any hotel I stay in, I was told many years ago by a friend who was a fireman that it's very different in the dark and when there is smoke around, thankfully never had to put any of it into practice.
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>> >> try finding your way out of a ship in thick smoke when you are
>> >> not 100% sure of its layout.
>> >>
>> On a similar note, I always count the rows of seats in an aircraft.............
Me too, likewise the doors to the stairwell in hotels and ships. Some may think it is ott, their problem, not mine. I would always aim to beat the smoke, but you need to be quick!
Last edited by: Old Navy on Thu 15 Jun 17 at 10:00
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>> On a similar note, ...and always check where the nearest fire exit is in any hotel I stay in,
>>
I had a similar list of actions from a USA firefighter.
Check the number of doors to the fire exits in each direction before you enter your room as this might be the last time you could do it.
Guard your door key and take it with you in an emergency as you might have to return to your room as the safer option.
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> On a similar note, I always count the rows of seats in an aircraft between
>> me and the emergency exit both forward and backward from my seat
likewise, having seen how quickly fire can spread on an aircraft. Its something i always remember to do as soon as I sit down.
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> I don't and wouldn't live in a tower block, a ship is similar in many
>> ways, try finding your way out of a ship in thick smoke when you are
>> not 100% sure of its layout. Getting out fast is the secret, for that you
>> need good alarms and people alert to the potential problems. Neither are found in tower
>> blocks.
No neither would i but many do. In this case and type of block the advice is to remain in your flat unless the fire is in your flat or you're directly affected by it.
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>> I don't and wouldn't live in a tower block, a ship is similar in many
>> ways, try finding your way out of a ship in thick smoke when you are
>> not 100% sure of its layout. Getting out fast is the secret,
This tower block was designed originally, like most residential ones in the UK, to contain fire to the unit in which it starts.
The walls and floors are non-combustible, and the entrance doors to the flats should contain a fire within for an hour. Note that these doors are designed to keep the fire in, not out. If the fire is in your flat you are supposed to get out and shut the door (all the doors should have closers).
There is only one stairwell in Grenfell House. Once the alarm has been raised, the fire service want to get their hoses up the stairs so they want the other occupants to stay where they are.
This mostly works. Fires in towers are not that rare, and they don't usually spread like this one.
I would still want to get out, particularly if I lived above the third floor.
The investigation may well conclude that the spread was due to the re-cladding in 2015, the "low combustibility" insulation used and voids behind it that allowed the fire to spread. The fire certainly seemed to be spreading on the outside rather than the inside. Other factors will probably emerge.
I used to work in a 10 storey office that was considered high risk. The smoke alarms were always triggering the monitored alarm. Because of the risk category, the fire service always turned out with two appliances and a 'Simon Snorkel' rescue platform. After a while they started charging us £1500 per false alarm. The fire service would send people in to the alarm location to check for fire but they always started unravelling the hoses and carting them up the stairs regardless. Standard procedure was to evacuate when the alarm went off, and we were always out by the time the fire engines arrived, but of course we weren't all asleep in bed.
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>> There is only one stairwell in Grenfell House.
Do you know this particular building?
If this is true, I am amazed that it met any kind of building regulations, even in the 1960s or 70s.
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> If this is true, I am amazed that it met any kind of building regulations,
>> even in the 1960s or 70s.
>>
>>
It was quite common, the idea was to create a safe zone in the core of the building that hold in plenty of time to get fireman in and residents out.
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The Stay Put advice was apparently so that the stairways etc don't get clogged up with people thereby allowing the firefighters to get in easily. It said somewhere that the flats are designed such that a fire is contained within a single flat.
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>> The Stay Put advice was apparently so that the stairways etc don't get clogged up
>> with people thereby allowing the firefighters to get in easily. It said somewhere that the
>> flats are designed such that a fire is contained within a single flat.
>>
That would probably work until the internal containment was bypassed with inflammable external cladding. If that is what happened. The building was reglazed as part of the refurb, were the frames plastic?
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>> The Stay Put advice was apparently so that the stairways etc don't get clogged up
>> with people thereby allowing the firefighters to get in easily.
Not just clogging. Lots of panicky people in a stairwell, some of whom may want to go up to help family/friends, is a recipe for disaster.
See also immediate aftermath of recent terror incidents.
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That is the reason for the difference between commercial and residential buildings. In commercial buildings you have set evacuation procedures and trained fire wardens to oversee evaacuation. In a residential building a mass evacuation is likely to end in chaos.
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The advice in residential Tower blocks with one central staircase is to stay put unless the fire is in your flat. In theory the fire should be contained in any individual flat. They are in effect concrete boxes and you should be safe. By staying put it means the stairway is not blocked allowing the fire services to enter the building and reach the fire and rescue anyone trapped in that flat.
This plan obviously does not work if you allow inflammable cladding to be retro fitted to the outside of the building allowing the fire to leap from floor to floor.
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>> The advice in residential Tower blocks with one central staircase is to stay put unless
>> the fire is in your flat.
>>
I cannot comprehend whoever built high rise flats in the 70s without at least one additional fire escape staircase.
I was in several high rise blocks in Glasgow during the 1970s and they all had fire escapes as well as the central staircase, usually beside the lifts.
Even Glasgow's first 10 storey high rise flats has fire escapes to the next door buildings to allow access to their staircase.
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I lived on the 11th floor of the vast en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heygate_Estate in sowf lunden when it first opened.
The thought of fire never entered my head, why would it. Mind you, it had two lifts and (IIRC) four staircases.
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>> >> The advice in residential Tower blocks with one central staircase is to stay put
>> unless
>> >> the fire is in your flat.
The advice to stay in your flat is for ALL blocks, regardless of number of stairwells, or exit points, because most of the time that is the safest place to be.
Blocks are built and designed to contain the fire at source. The assumption is that a fire will start in a flat, and there it must remain. Sealed and stopped service ducts and holes, self closing sealed and fire rated doors. Concrete walls with thermal breaks.
Corridors made from non flammable materials, nothing to burn within, same with stairwells, self closing fire doors, nothing to burn, controlled up draft up to vent gasses.
There are more fires than you think in high rises, the design works well, the stay in your flat advice works, and the fire brigade knows what it is doing.
Except, when you stick a flammable* cladding up the side and plastic window frames.
Bingo, roman candle that bypasses all the inherent safety within the building.
*You wouldn't think it was flammable, Aluminium/zinc skin with insulation inside. Except an updraft up the side of the building can easily double the temperature of a fire, Aluminium will burn, the insulation was polythene based, and the window frames are plastic.
Last edited by: Zero on Thu 15 Jun 17 at 10:18
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> This plan obviously does not work if you allow inflammable cladding to be retro fitted
>> to the outside of the building allowing the fire to leap from floor to floor.
>
the plan should still work even with cladding that catches fire. With the fire going from floor to the floor the central core should remain smoke and fire free for some time. There's a lot for a fire to get through from the outside right through to the inner core. They'll be at least two fire doors plus the flats itself which are designed to contain the fire. The windows themselves i believe were fire rated.
There are multiple layers that the fire has to jump across to get from the outside to in, the exterior could be well ablaze and the core of the building fine. It didn't happen in this case. I suspect the fire spread so quickly because of poor compartmenting of the fire. Could be anything simple from multiple fire doors propped open to something more complex.
Although I know one thing, there won't be a single cause, they'll be many aggravating /secondary factors.
Last edited by: sooty123 on Thu 15 Jun 17 at 11:14
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Fire training at work prioritises the need to evacuate. Alarms deliberately make you feel physically sick to force quick exit if safe to do so.
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>> What's so bad about living underground eh?
Ask any submariner or miner if they would live underground. Unless you have tried it and enjoyed it of course, it takes all sorts. :-)
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Installing gas supplies in these high risers seems a bad idea.
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Lot's of good points here.
Though not sure that speculation is appropriate when their are no doubt still bodies to be found.
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>> >> What's so bad about living underground eh?
>>
>> Ask any submariner or miner if they would live underground. Unless you have tried it
>> and enjoyed it of course, it takes all sorts. :-)
In the event of a fire in a submarine, you will be locked into your compartment and expected to fight it yourself. If you dont put it out you aint coming out.
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>> In the event of a fire in a submarine, you will be locked into your
>> compartment and expected to fight it yourself. If you dont put it out you aint
>> coming out.
>>
Correct up to a point, all submariners, and navy personnel are trained and practiced fire fighters. There is a technique for entering a burning compartment and there is an abundance of the latest fire fighting equipment, (we had thermal imaging cameras long before the civil fire services) in fact the civil fire services used our training facilities as they were far better than theirs. There is also an emergency breathing system in submarines which you can plug a full face breathing mask into. If things get out of control you isolate the compartment having evacuated it and the re-enter. There is a facility to ventilate and dump smoke or other contaminants from any compartment..
Last edited by: Old Navy on Thu 15 Jun 17 at 11:43
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One thing that puzzled me was how did they extinguish the fire on the highest floors? - as far as I could see there was no sprinkler system and that Crane-Hose could only reach barely half way up the tower. The only way I could think of would be Helicopter tankers dumping their loads directly above, but that didn't seem to happen.
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In 1982 I stayed in a hotel in Westchester , USA. (Business). Came back after work to discover huge fire had broken out and spread under false ceilings - polystyrene tiles - and killed c 20 people at a conference in a meeting room. Black smoke everywhere.
Relocated to another hotel.
First thing I do in a strange building is check the fire exits and where they are - no use searching in dark and smoke of a fire.
At the first sound/sign of fire, exit asap is my motto.
The cladding fixed to the outside of building was made of an aluminium skin with insulation substrate which was highly inflammable. Even worse, to prevent damp, there is a gap between it and building so a wonderful chimney effect to spread fires. Well known issue. (Melbourne had one). There is an alternative non inflammable insulation but it is rock based, and more expensive
This has been known about as a major issue for years. The normal high rise building has internal fire breaks to prevent fire spreading (or at least slow it down). There were none on the outside of the tower (apparently)
In my view anyone who specifies such cladding without firebreaks is criminally negligent. (None of this is new - it's been known for decades you need firebreaks in high rise buildings).
Last edited by: madf on Thu 15 Jun 17 at 12:27
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>> One thing that puzzled me was how did they extinguish the fire on the highest floors?
The good old traditional method I would have thought. Firemen and hoses making their way up the stairs, putting out the fire in front of them as they advanced forward and upward.
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>> One thing that puzzled me was how did they extinguish the fire on the highest
>> floors?
They didn't/couldn't.
Some buildings have "Dry risers" a pipe which runs up the building with hose outlets on each floor, you attach a big pump to the bottom and hoses at whatever floor you need them
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>> Some buildings have "Dry risers" a pipe which runs up the building with hose outlets on each floor
As a student in Manchester I used to live on the 9th floor of a (18 storey) tower. We often had false fire alarms in the middle of the night - usually someone burning their toast. That had the dry risers and I assumed maybe falsely all blocks of flats would have those.
Often fellow students assumed a false alarm and didn't come out. Once we were outside for a very long time and you could see students above looking out of windows and now concerned. Realising that there might be a fire (there wasn't) but knowing if they went out now after all this time they'd probably get a good telling off by the fire bridge and warden. They did in the end - nobody could go back in until they came out.
When they retrofitted a new smoke alarm system (heat detectors in the kitchens) the alarms were very loud. One fellow student however could sleep through that racket so we used to have to check he was up!
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the alarms
>> were very loud. One fellow student however could sleep through that racket so we used
>> to have to check he was up!
That's some deep sleep. Shared accommodation like students halls the sounders are designed to be very loud, uncomfortably so if you stay in the room.
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>>One fellow student however could sleep through that racket so we used
>> to have to check he was up!
Girl in room next door to Miss B in first year halls could do that. That had to work very hard to rouse her and she was a Sikh and non drinker.
Not sure whether my son would hear either. He's slept through several French thunderstorms while other three were bailing flood water out of the family tent.
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>> >> One thing that puzzled me was how did they extinguish the fire on the
>> highest
>> >> floors?
>>
>> They didn't/couldn't.
It was reported that the firefighters inside got no higher than the 12th floor.
>> Some buildings have "Dry risers"
Very tall or large ones sometimes have wet risers that are pretty similar but pre-charged with water. I have wondered whether they have to flush them though now and then.
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>> >> Some buildings have "Dry risers"
>>
>> Very tall or large ones sometimes have wet risers that are pretty similar but pre-charged
>> with water. I have wondered whether they have to flush them though now and then.
>>
The problem with risers is you need a very powerful, or possibly several pumps, to get useable pressure at the top of a tall building.
Last edited by: Old Navy on Thu 15 Jun 17 at 15:21
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>> One thing that puzzled me was how did they extinguish the fire on the highest floors?
They'd use the fire hoses in the building and the building's water supply. Except in this instance the whole building went up and their normal fire fighting methods were not applicable. A fire should have been contained within the flat where it started.
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>> One thing that puzzled me was how did they extinguish the fire on the highest
>> floors? - as far as I could see there was no sprinkler system and that
>> Crane-Hose could only reach barely half way up the tower. The only way I could
>> think of would be Helicopter tankers dumping their loads directly above, but that didn't seem
>> to happen.
Dry Riser.
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>> We gotta make a new life. You know where? Underground. You should see it down
>> there - hundreds of miles of drains - sweet and clean now after the rain,
>> dark, quiet, safe. We can build houses and everything, start again from scratch.
>>
>> What's so bad about living underground eh? It's not been so great living up here,
>> if you want my opinion.
>>
Strange....Just been listening to my tape of that with Burton and Essex while I was working in the garage.
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Brutalism anyone? en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brutalist_architecture
Many of my customers lived in various tower blocks in south & east London. Even if the punter lived on the 5th floor, I would take the lift to the top floor to take in the amazing views.
I well remember en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brutalist_architecture#/media/File:Trellick_Tower2.jpg which is now Grade 11 listed.
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The single staircase issue is a red herring, in that its not an issue. As is sprinklers, I mean they would have been installed outside the building now would they.
Last edited by: Zero on Thu 15 Jun 17 at 13:57
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>> Many of my customers lived in various tower blocks in south & east London. Even
>> if the punter lived on the 5th floor, I would take the lift to the
>> top floor to take in the amazing views.
I worked for a short while in Archway Tower, then offices now an appartment block:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vantage_Point_(apartment_building)
The upper floors on south facing side had stunning views over central London. AFAIR it only had one staircase.
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>> Many of my customers lived in various tower blocks in south & east London. Even
>> if the punter lived on the 5th floor, I would take the lift to the
>> top floor to take in the amazing views.
My tax office used to be on the top of Tolworth Tower. I always enjoyed the view before going in to the office for the friendly chats.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tolworth#Tolworth_Tower
Last edited by: Duncan on Thu 15 Jun 17 at 14:37
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Since 1974 I bet there's been a number of fires in Grenfell Tower. I'd be very surprised if there hadn't been.
So it was built over 40 years ago and was safe. Then after 40 years it was updated and had plastic windows and insulation put on the outside... First fire and the whole lot goes up.
If they needed to use insulation, surely some using rock wool was the way to go? That's also used for other forms of insulation. No idea how much it would have cost extra - but it can't have been that much. I will ask someone I know who co-owns an insulation company that specialises in using rock wool (sound, heat and other forms of insulation projects).
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It was always a bright idea to build the tallest building in outer london, then dig out an underpass next to it. And everyone was surprised - not - when it started leaning.
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>> It was always a bright idea to build the tallest building in outer london, then
>> dig out an underpass next to it. And everyone was surprised - not - when
>> it started leaning.
>>
We have one here in the city centre, Zedski. Rodwell Tower, offices, at the bottom of Piccadilly Station approach has a noticable lean to the South.
Built on stilts over the Rochdale canal...Not surprised !
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>>The upper floors on south facing side had stunning views over central London. AFAIR it only had one staircase.
>>My tax office used to be on the top of Tolworth Tower. I always enjoyed the view before going in to the office for the friendly chats.
Yep, some view: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tolworth#/media/File:Tolworth_tower_gigapixel_panorama.jpg
Have you ever been up the top of St Pauls. I like tower blocks and specifically asked for a top floor flat in the Heygate Estate. The missus doesn't like heights but 20, 30, or more floors high would do me just fine.
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>> The missus doesn't like heights but 20, 30, or more floors high would do me just fine.
Not me. I used to live high up in New York & Sao Paulo and was an almost weekly visitor to the bar at the top of the WTC in NY. Worked high in London and Chicago.
Never liked it, but put up with it.
And then a big-a*** earthquake will i was in bed on the twenty-something floor of a hotel in Santiago put me off permanently.
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Even a little-a** earthquake would just about put me orf tower blocks for life!
The missus spent some time in Japan back in the 80's. Tokyo, Kyoto, and Nikko. She was on the 8th floor of a hotel in Tokyo when they had a quake, she ass-umed it was just jetlag, until asked how she felt about it later on by the Nips.
She explained to me it was like floating/being on a boat ... stuff that!!
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In 2000 I spent many a week staying here en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yokohama_Landmark_Tower
before moving to Yokohama for a few years. I quite enjoyed the sensation of being on the 60 something floor, and the frequent tremors didn't really bother me. I'm not sure I even considered how to escape in the event of fire mind you!
A rather more noticeable 'quake in October 2001 spooked an American visitor I had who was staying there however...not because of shaking, but because the loud 'crack' noise made him think a plane had ploughed into it... Mind you, at the adjacent museum there's a helicopter simulator that lets you fly round Yokohama. I must have crashed into that tower half a dozen time in the summer of 2001...no one came knocking on my door fortunately
And I agree, the sensation in my office (9th floor of a different building) was like being in a large ship in a swell...
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>>In 2000 I spent many a week staying here Yokohama_Landmark_Tower
"The tower contains what were at their inauguration the world's second fastest elevators, which reach speeds of 12.5 m/s (41 ft/s)[1] (45.0 km/h (28.0 mph)).
This speed allows the elevator to reach the 69th floor in approximately 40 seconds"
Reminds me of the first time I used a faster than what I'd been used to lift, in Kennington near the Oval.
I was in my early teens at the time, probably 'under the influence' of herbs - I honestly thought the lift was faulty and it was going to crash, so I laid on the floor just in case.
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The lifts were quick, I remember that! And from the lobby at ground floor to the first hotel rooms (40th or 50th floor - can't remember) was very quick indeed. Made my ears 'pop' often :)
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Once went for a business dinner at TheHotel, Las Vegas, now called the Delano. I arrived a lone and got into a strange, seemingly concrete lined with glass elevator which I was assured would take me straight to the 64th floor.
Problem Number 1; the elevator was just the glass bit. The concrete stayed where it was. Bit scared.
Problem Number 2; the elevator was external. Like actually on the outside of the building. Lot scared.
But it was a very fast elevator, which minimised the moments of abject panic I suffered.
The WTC NY elevators were the fastest I've ever been in; 104 floors very very quickly. Quite disorienting.
Last edited by: No FM2R on Thu 15 Jun 17 at 20:18
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Once stayed in the Luxor hotel in Vegas. It's pyramid shaped and the lifts are in the corners so they go sideways as well as up. Kind of weird feeling. Actually, Vegas is weird all round in my opinion. Have to go there for work sometimes, but nothing could persuade me to go there for a holiday. It more or less embodies everything about the human condition I most dislike.
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>>Vegas is weird all round in my opinion. Have to go there for work sometimes, but nothing could persuade me to go there for a holiday
I actually have never been there for a holiday, always on business, but I usually either arrive a few days early or leave a few days later.
I pretty much always stay at the MGM Grand. I like it there.
And overall I utterly love Vegas, for all of its flaws and examples of dodgy humanity. I really, really enjoy it. I'm not much of a gambler, but I love watching people gamble, the facilities are superb, and there's loads to see around and outside Las Vegas.
The hotels want you to gamble. They don't want to spend a fortune on marketing and service to get you there only to see you walk down the street because the beer is a buck cheaper or the food a tad better elsewhere.
OK, I couldn't take much more than a week or so of it a year, but for that week I love it.
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>> OK, I couldn't take much more than a week or so of it a year,
>> but for that week I love it.
Vegas is one of those places that you need to visit and stay in. Once or maybe twice in your life, but you need to go, its a place that never fails to live up to your expectations.
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> Actually, Vegas is weird all round in my opinion. Have to go there for work
>> sometimes, but nothing could persuade me to go there for a holiday. It more or
>> less embodies everything about the human condition I most dislike.
>>
When I'm out there i usually spend a few weeks at a time, in total something like a year. It's certainly an odd place, first time i went i was in my early twenties had an absolute fantastic time. But even now after having spent loads of time there it's still a bit unreal. To me anyway.
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The most scariest lift/elevator I've ever been in was when I had a regular customer in St. Thomas' Hospital and had to use their internal lift to find him. The *lift was one of those things which have no doors and are continuously moving so you have to sort of jump on and jump orf at the right time, or you'll be needing to visit a hospital.
* There is a name for that type of elevator I believe. Ah, here ya go: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paternoster
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>>She explained to me it was like floating/being on a boat ... stuff that!!
Difficult to describe.
As near as I can get its like all the "room wobblying, falling over, loss of balance" that you get when you're really drunk, but somehow you're not drunk though the room still feels like it is.
As a description that probably only makes sense if you've been in a substantial earthquake, and then you wouldn't need it.
On top of that, its scary and you can't run away. Whereas within reason being on a boat is not scary (though I have been in some situations where it was).
The problem with an earthquake is that you don't know how strong it will be. So a 4.0 (naff all) and an 8.0 (quite a lot) both feel the same when they start.
You just don't know how bad life is going to get, until it stops getting worse.
Last edited by: No FM2R on Thu 15 Jun 17 at 19:57
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There's a lot to be said for Blighty.
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I quite like brutalist architecture, the trouble is is was never done well, and always done on the cheap.
The south bank is a good example of great brutalist design, built cheaply. Now some 60 years later with renovation, its deeply functional and attractive.
Last edited by: Zero on Thu 15 Jun 17 at 15:38
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I used to play around the south bank area in the late 50's with my friend Danny. I can remember playing on the concrete train loco, like it was yesterday.
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What in the future?
The block will have to come down. Even if it is structurally sound and can be refurbed, no-one will want to live in it.
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It doesn't look structually sound to me.It will be a grave yard with ashes of the dead.Nobody will build on this spot again.
London is becoming a powder keg a lot of anger and frustration out there.One street the Ferraris and poverty in the next.These type of flats are S/Holes rabbit hutches take them all down.
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>> These type of flats are S/Holes rabbit hutches take
>> them all down.
You want us to stuff all the displaced people in your house?
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An architect and fire safety expert, Arnold Tarling, has just been interviewed on BBC News.
He was very critical of the "fenestration" and the cladding. The windows were PVCu, which are installed with gaps around them filled with flammable polyurethane foam. The cladding was two sheets of aluminium with polyethylene in between. He described the polyethylene as "solid fuel" which burns upwards and downwards when it melts, and the aluminium prevents the firefighters putting water on it. The one hour fire resistance of the outside was in effect removed.
He lectured the BSI on this in 2014 and predicted such an event, based on what had happened elsewhere (I think France was mentioned) which was well known to those in the business.
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"Nobody will build on this spot again."
They did 350 years ago.
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>> "Nobody will build on this spot again."
>>
>> They did 350 years ago.
350 years ago Latimer road was a swamp. Ok you might argue that west london hasn't improved any since then, but there certainly wasn't any building there.
Meanwhile 6 miles east in pudding lane, 350 years ago things were indeed hotting up.
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Disasters attract politicians. Theresa May seems never at a loss to throw away votes and this time she has done it by her aloofness from victims or helpers.
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>> Disasters attract politicians. Theresa May seems never at a loss to throw away votes and
>> this time she has done it by her aloofness from victims or helpers.
OK, it's The Guardian, but Op-Ed view today is that she's skewered by this in way Bush 2 was by Hurricane Katrina:
www.theguardian.com/uk-news/commentisfree/2017/jun/15/the-guardian-view-on-grenfell-tower-theresa-may-hurricane-katrina
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In fairness if they go to a disaster scene politicians are often accused of taking advantage for a photo op.
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Its a shame this tragedy is now being hijacked by the "all property is theft" brigade. Before the fire it was not a slum, not a sink hole, a large sum of money had been spent on upgrading it (Ok badly spent as it happens),
OK we have all realised that May has the Charisma of an empty crisp packet, and just as easily blown about, and her *personal* reaction to this has shown that she has little in the way of visible empathy. She is a very poor communicator. Her days at the top are seriously numbered.
Last edited by: Zero on Fri 16 Jun 17 at 11:00
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>>Its a shame this tragedy is now being hijacked by the "all property is theft" brigade.
Paddy-from-the-bogs (James O'Brien) on LBC has done much to, um, fan the flames in that department.
None less so than the likes of the Sun and the Wail of course, pushing their own agenda.
There certainly is a lot of anger out there, even before Grenfell Tower. Tis like a tinderbox , the slightest spark ...
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Just come back from Waitrose. Asked at the desk if they had their usual free sheet "Weekend" which my wife likes to read.
Afraid not she said, they had a picture of a family barbecue on the front. And Waitrose decided to withdraw them all as they did not want to cause offence after the fire.
A bit overr the top don't you think?
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>> A bit overr the top don't you think?
Ridiculous. Its not exactly the same league as showing Towering Inferno is it.
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>> OK, it's The Guardian, but Op-Ed view today is that she's skewered by this in
>> way Bush 2 was by Hurricane Katrina:
>>
Guardian rubbish (slap!) , cheap political points scoring, the accusations in New Orleans were that the people were left to fend for themselves where as the survivors of the tragic fire at Grenfell Tower have the Police, Fire and Ambulance on site the Mayor of London's office/ City Hall on the case and Kensington & Chelsea BC providing support:
For instance quote BBC- "Kensington and Chelsea London Borough Council said it had housed 109 households in hotels in west London by Friday morning and people should get in touch - on 020 7361 3008 - if they were still in need." I read earlier that the families were being given cash if need be.
It's hard to see what more the gov can do, better their efforts arte on a public enquiry and trying to avoid a repeat.
Last edited by: VxFan on Sat 17 Jun 17 at 20:43
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What you say is true but it's all about perception. May comes across as a cold fish and her self proclaimed pride in the "difficult woman" image doesn't help. A perceived lack of empathy with the working classes,ironic in view of some of her statements about those just about managing, means that she won't last. I expect her gone by Christmas.
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When's the conference? November? If she hasn't gone before, she might resign then in the bosom of the faithful who will cheer her into retirement.
I don't suppose the Brexit talks will be going too well, and as the symbol of Conservative toxicity she will be battered whatever she comes up with.
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>> What you say is true but it's all about perception. May comes across as a
>> cold fish and her self proclaimed pride in the "difficult woman" image doesn't help. A
>> perceived lack of empathy with the working classes,ironic in view of some of her statements about those just about managing, means that she won't last. I expect her gone by Christmas. >>
I'm not her biggest fan, DC was much more inclusive and a better communicator (oh if we could bring him back) though media reporting like this is ridiculous. Has anyone criticised Corbyn for saying that houses should be requisitioned when he will have known that the council had or were arranging hotel rooms. It's just not the time and place for points scoring or retribution, any of that can come later if needs be, now's the time for recovery, grief, counselling, rehoming and ensuring there is not a repeat elsewhere.
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>> Has anyone
>> criticised Corbyn for saying that houses should be requisitioned
No because despite the efforts of the Daily Wail to quote him out of context, everyone knows that what he said makes sense. Properties owned by foreign nationals kept empty for investment purposes should be requisitioned in times like this.
Of course they should be taxed at such heinous levels that they wouldn't be empty.
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>>
>> >> Has anyone
>> >> criticised Corbyn for saying that houses should be requisitioned
>>
>> No because despite the efforts of the Daily Wail to quote him out of context,
>> everyone knows that what he said makes sense. Properties owned by foreign nationals kept empty for investment purposes should be requisitioned in times like this.
>>
Couldn't disagree more! Of course it would be nice if home owners opened their doors and many have though to requisition legitimately owned properties ... hmm. Perhaps if there were literally no other option though Corbyn would have known the plans re hotel rooms so his comments simply help to drive a wedge between the very unfortunate victims and their wealthier neighbours, totally unnecessary.
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so
>> his comments simply help to drive a wedge between the very unfortunate victims and their
>> wealthier neighbours, totally unnecessary.
>>
>>
>>
Corbyn's comments aren't known to me, (anyone got a link?) however I very much doubt he drove any wedge between anyone. It would have been there before and many locals will have been away of the differences between the have and have nots. He may well have shone a light on that wedge though.
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>> Couldn't disagree more! Of course it would be nice if home owners opened their doors
>> and many have though to requisition legitimately owned properties ... hmm. Perhaps if there were
>> literally no other option though Corbyn would have known the plans re hotel rooms so
>> his comments simply help to drive a wedge between the very unfortunate victims and their
>> wealthier neighbours, totally unnecessary.
And you have missed it as well, deliberately. EMPTY properties. Kept deliberately empty. The wealthy neighbours don't exist, their properties do.
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>> And you have missed it as well, deliberately. EMPTY properties. Kept deliberately empty. The wealthy neighbours don't exist, their properties do.
>>
They are not all empty though even of the ones that are, the majority are lawfully owned and we cannot have politicians deciding that they can simply take them over.
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>> They are not all empty though even of the ones that are, the majority are
>> lawfully owned and we cannot have politicians deciding that they can simply take them over.
Government, under existing legislation or new law passed by parliament for purpose, can quite legitimately sequester property. There would need to be compensation though.
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> They are not all empty though even of the ones that are, the majority are
>> lawfully owned and we cannot have politicians deciding that they can simply take them over.
Of course they can, merely a matter of political will. Rather than think of it right or wrong matters such as this are a matter of public interest and opinion.
If there's the opinion that the greater weight of the public feel it's better they be bought up then they will. If not they won't.
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>>
>> If there's the opinion >>
I am simply expressing my opinion which is that it was unnecessary to suggest requisitioning when it was known that the council had arranged hotel rooms.
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>> I am simply expressing my opinion which is that it was unnecessary to suggest requisitioning
>> when it was known that the council had arranged hotel rooms.
Hotel rooms are temporary accomadation. Even in decent clean premises they're not a long term solution. The lower quality end of "B&B" used as emergency housing is truly appalling. Only a matter of time before there's a tragedy in that area too.
Last edited by: Bromptonaut on Fri 16 Jun 17 at 18:02
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>> >>
>> >> If there's the opinion >>
>>
>> I am simply expressing my opinion which is that it was unnecessary to suggest requisitioning
>> when it was known that the council had arranged hotel rooms.
The council has said it is unable to rehome all those displaced within the borough, families will be split, and schooling will be disrupted.
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>> They are not all empty though even of the ones that are, the majority are
>> lawfully owned and we cannot have politicians deciding that they can simply take them over.
Are there 200 homes kept empty for financial reasons within the borough? Yes there are.
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My family home is not in London, but clearly I am not in it. It's not empty for financial reasons, just geographic.
So should it be inordinately taxed, or taken? And if not how would you differentiate between it and a house empty for financial reasons?
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>> My family home is not in London, but clearly I am not in it. It's
>> not empty for financial reasons, just geographic.
As its not in an area of need, then its a hypothetical question. And yes it should be inordinately taxed because it is appreciating in value. And its doing so because of shortage of housing stock.
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But all of our houses are appreciating, not just mine. Why should mine be taxed *more* because I am out of the country?
A second home is effectively taxed more especially when you sell it, but why should my first home be?
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>> But all of our houses are appreciating, not just mine. Why should mine be taxed
>> *more* because I am out of the country?
>>
>> A second home is effectively taxed more especially when you sell it, but why should
>> my first home be?
Because you are not there, its not your first home. How long have you been out of the country? Certainly long enough to be classed as out of the country for tax purposes.
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>> But all of our houses are appreciating, not just mine. Why should mine be taxed
>> *more* because I am out of the country?
>>
>> A second home is effectively taxed more especially when you sell it, but why should
>> my first home be?
>>
I wouldn't comment on the rights and wrongs of your personal situation, but my instinct is that we are entering one of these periods of seismic political change of the type that swept Clement Attlee to power in 1945 and Thatcher in 1979. There is a growing feeling that the wealth gap is way out of control and the mood that led to Brexit here and Trump in America, mainly by those who felt disenfranchised and in no hope situations could well lead to the return of a redistributive socialist government. Many people think Corbyn peaked with the election result, but the Tories are in a complete mess and in line for a possible drubbing at the next election, whenever that may be.
And it will probably be sooner rather than later.
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>>There is a growing feeling that the wealth gap is way out of control and the mood that led to Brexit here and Trump in America
I think it is out of control. I also think idleness and sponging off the state is out of control. Both need addressing, and as far as I can see any political party we have at the moment only proposes to address one or the other.
>>those who felt disenfranchised and in no hope situation
Those are certainly a force, but I'm not sure that they are a major force. Or at least, not *the* major force.
I think for years and ever increasingly our politicians have moved towards a point where they are not judged by any positives, they are only penalised by the presence of negatives. A fantasy example might be that if a politician had spent years working hard and helping all around him, and consistently doing what he promised, that wouldn't neccessarily keep him in power IF he was then recorded by the media slagging off a family calling them idle spongers and the like.
It has become essential to a politician to avoid any reported negatives. It has become almost irrelevant to report any positive. A political weapon is to point out and jump of any negative from a competing politician.
This has pretty much meant that there are no positives to enjoy. So how are we supposed to feel good about or like a bunch of people that only ever annoy us and never make us unhappy?
And that's what has caused this sweeping disruption.
Take Farage. IMO, an a***. But he spent a great deal more time saying what he thought then he did anything else. And I'm pretty sure that had he got into power he'd have tried damned hard to do what he said.
Trump; said what he would do, clearly, and is now doing it. Can't stand him either.
But in both cases they represent some positives to some section of the electorate. Its the same as Michelle Bachelet in Chile.
So, in my opinion the world of politics will change when the electorate are driven by the good that their elected representatives actually do, and the politicians get the idea that it will be the presence of positive that will keep them in power, not the absence of negative or grandstand rhetoric.
Far too many words, as usual, sorry. But I do think this is an important point, vital even, and I've never yet managed to explain it succinctly.
Last edited by: No FM2R on Fri 16 Jun 17 at 21:18
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>> I think for years and ever increasingly our politicians have moved towards a point where
>> they are not judged by any positives, they are only penalised by the presence of
>> negatives.
>>
Being proved on streets around Grenfell Tower. The local council (politicians and staff} seem to have abandoned the victims, and seemingly left them to be looked after by voluntary organisations.
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>> Being proved on streets around Grenfell Tower. The local council (politicians and staff} seem to
>> have abandoned the victims, and seemingly left them to be looked after by voluntary organisations.
Which rather bears out my point upthread, rigorously denied by another if the righties, that this is for May what Hurricane Katerina was for Bush 2.
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>>Trump; said what he would do, clearly, and is now doing it. Can't stand him either.
I had not noticed that.
Not doing very well on two key promises
Jobs in coal mining ?
The US’s first new coal mine in years, heralded by president Donald Trump as a fulfillment of campaign promises, will employ 70 people,
www.cnbc.com/2017/06/15/new-coal-jobs-the-trump-team-is-touting-might-not-actually-exist.html
www.marketplace.org/2017/06/15/sustainability/counting-american-coal-jobs-whats-real-total
money.cnn.com/2017/06/02/news/economy/400-coal-mining-jobs-trump-paris/index.html
The U.S. added 400 coal mining jobs during May, according to Friday's payroll report.
While those gains are helpful, they aren't enough to offset the dramatic job losses the coal industry has experienced in recent years.
The U.S. now has about 51,000 coal mining jobs, a far cry from the 89,400 positions counted by the Bureau of Labor Statistics at the end of 2011.
Another way to think of it: coal mining employs less than half as many people as struggling JCPenney (JCP), which listed 106,000 workers as of late January.
The famous wall. Absolutely not a chance in hell of it happening
A very long article
6 things that could topple Donald Trump's border wall
www.bbc.co.uk/news/resources/idt-d60acebe-2076-4bab-90b4-0e9a5f62ab12.
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>> government. Many people think Corbyn peaked with the election result, but the Tories are in
>> a complete mess and in line for a possible drubbing at the next election, whenever
>> that may be.
>>
Tony Blair's aim was to make the Tories unelectable forever. It will probably come true due to the shambolic "leadership" of Theresa May.
The Telegraph on 23 Oct 2009
The huge increases in migrants over the last decade were partly due to a politically motivated attempt by ministers to radically change the country and "rub the Right's nose in diversity", according to Andrew Neather, a former adviser to Tony Blair, Jack Straw and David Blunkett.
He said Labour's relaxation of controls was a deliberate plan to "open up the UK to mass migration" but that ministers were nervous and reluctant to discuss such a move publicly for fear it would alienate its "core working class vote"."
The Telegraph on 27 Feb 2016
"Tom Bower's new biography of Tony Blair claims the former prime minister paved the way for mass immigration to the UK but ordered civil servants and ministers never to discuss the issue"
The Guardian on 24 March 2015
www.theguardian.com/news/2015/mar/24/how-immigration-came-to-haunt-labour-inside-story
"Between 1997 and 2010, net annual immigration quadrupled, and the UK population was boosted by more than 2.2 million immigrants, more than twice the population of Birmingham. In Labour’s last term in government, 2005-2010, net migration reached on average 247,000 a year."
"In 1999, an unlikely group of revolutionaries came together in the warren of nondescript offices and meeting rooms that make up the Cabinet Office. Appointed to the Performance and Innovation Unit, a small team of civil servants were given a vague and innocuous-sounding task: to assess some of the long-term strategic challenges for the UK. “It was your typical sort of civil service thing – four bright civil servants being asked to think big thoughts about the future of the UK,†remembers the unit’s then deputy director, Jonathan Portes, who as an undergraduate had studied maths at Balliol College, Oxford."
“We came out with a lot of obvious stuff,†Portes says. But there was one element in their findings that they had not expected at all. According to their analysis and many of the experts they spoke to, as globalisation gathered pace “immigration had suddenly become a big deal for the UK from an economic point of view – despite having been off the policy agenda in economic terms for the last 20 years or so at that pointâ€.
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>> >>
>>
>> Tony Blair's aim was to make the Tories unelectable forever. It will probably come true
>> due to the shambolic "leadership" of Theresa May.
>>
>>
>>
Neither Labour or the Conservatives will ever become unelectable forever. The party in power have a limited life before they screw up big time or their collective sins catch up with them and they fall to a revitalised opposition, mostly full of new faces who have junked the baggage that got their predecessors booted out.
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>> Couldn't disagree more!
If Jeremy had turned up with 5 loaves and 2 fish and fed the multitude you'd still complain about him :-)
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>> >> Couldn't disagree more!
>>
>> If Jeremy had turned up with 5 loaves and 2 fish and fed the multitude
>> you'd still complain about him :-)
Actually you have just encapsulated Corbyns grasp of economics. The rich will provide the rest of the shoal and granary.
Last edited by: Zero on Fri 16 Jun 17 at 17:03
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>> >> Couldn't disagree more!
>>
>> If Jeremy had turned up with 5 loaves and 2 fish and fed the multitude
>> you'd still complain about him :-)
>>
He's probably got a better chance of doing that than paying for his promises by raising taxes.
Though no, my point was that the Guardian's piece is political point scoring of the worst kind and that if one wants, one can find criticisms to level the other way.
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>> If Jeremy had turned up with 5 loaves and 2 fish and fed the multitude
>> you'd still complain about him :-)
That would rather depend on where and how he got them and who paid for them.
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>> Has anyone
>> criticised Corbyn for saying that houses should be requisitioned
>>
Yes, the Telegraph has, and also Guido has:
"During the election and before Jeremy Corbyn campaigned against the government’s intention to seek a derogation or exit from the provisions of the European Convention on Human Rights. He claimed: “The Tories want to repeal the Human Rights Act and some want to leave the European Convention on Human Rights.â€
Article 1 of the First Protocol of the Human Rights Act enshrines the protection of property, a right that would be breached by the requisitioning of other people’s properties."
Re. spending the order of £100k per flat for the refurbishment (primary objective to weatherproof the building and improve insulation to meet global warming energy saving targets); there are many towns in Scotland where you can buy three bedroom homes for under £100k. Since Nicola Sturgeon says that Scotland is in dire need of net immigration, why didn't she offer to house most of those refugees who were housed in Grenfell Tower in the most expensive borough in England? With the £10 million renovation cost, she could have given residents a house each to own outright.
re. empty properties - "... "a report commissioned by the Mayor of London found that almost no homes in London owned by overseas buyers are being left empty. The research, by the London School of Economics, found that "there was almost no evidence of units being left entirely empty - certainly less than 1pc."
Mayor Sadiq Khan campaigned on the issue of foreign ownership during his election campaign, arguing that developers should give Londoners "first dibs" on homes."
re. fire extinguishers - they tend to go missing or are vandalised in such communal housing blocks.
re. Corbyn - he is fearless as he is an expert at turning up at locations where other politicians fear to tread, just look up all the occasions where he has teamed up with anarchists, communists, Marxists, terrorists. Today his Corbynistas are demonstrating in London trying to gain access to BBC. They got in to RB of K&Chelsea head office but stopped short of trashing the place.
www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/jun/16/we-want-justice-grenfell-tower-protest-spills-into-town-hall
Guardian has also managed to play the "race card":
www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/jun/16/grenfell-britain-fails-migrants-north-kensington-london-refugee - by Nesrine Malik
"It was impossible to look at them and not see the obvious: they were, overwhelmingly, Arab, Muslim or African. They were European migrants, black British, refugees from the developing world – some of them second generation – and asylum seekers, sharing the tower with the poor, white working class of London. It was impossible to listen to the languages spoken on the phone to loved ones and not hear that these people were those often filed as “otherâ€. It was impossible to read the names of the dead and the missing and not see that they, or their parents, were displaced from elsewhere. The first victim named was a Syrian refugee, Mohammed al-Haj Ali. The list is now extending into a roll call of the marginalised, the maligned and the disenfranchised."
Last edited by: BrianByPass on Fri 16 Jun 17 at 21:10
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We can talk to infinitum what works in society political wise.Left right or in the middle but what happened here was unnecessary.
This is a safety and money issue which could have been prevented to this scale of destruction.I was listening to a firefighter who went into this inferno and what he tried to do.Amid the screams of terror from children to get out.I did firetraining at Morton on the MarshI was a voluntary firefighter. It was tough and you know what you can go into in a real life situation.We trained mainly for chemical fires storage tanks and also buildings with people in it.There is a comradeship amongst your mates you can't put a name to it.
These poor people shouldn't have died this way not in a city where there is no shortage of money.
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More on how unrealistic the idea of requesitioning property is.
www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-40303142
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>> More on how unrealistic the idea of requesitioning property is.
>>
>> www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-40303142
Your original complaint seemed to be about morality rather than practicality.
If the political will is there legislation is possible.
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>> Your original complaint seemed to be about morality rather than practicality.
>>
My original point was critising the Guardian' article, I said media reporting like this is ridiculous. Has anyone criticised Corbyn for saying that houses should be requisitioned when he will have known that the council had or were arranging hotel rooms.
>> If the political will is there legislation is possible.
>>
The gov have put up £5 million to temporarily re home residents in the short term and permanently rehome all residents within three months as close to their original home as possible.
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>> My original point was critising the Guardian' article, I said media reporting like this is
>> ridiculous. Has anyone criticised Corbyn for saying that houses should be requisitioned when he will
>> have known that the council had or were arranging hotel rooms.
As I pointed out yesterday hotels, even decent ones, are only a short term solution. Requisition is an answer to long term rehoming. There are likely to be other blocks with same cladding as Grenfell. Residents of these will also need to be decanted.
>> The gov have put up £5 million to temporarily re home residents in the short
>> term and permanently rehome all residents within three months as close to their original home
>> as possible.
Aside from question of whether £5m is enough where is capacity? Vacant investment property might only be a small proportion of London's housing stock but it's concentrated on Westminster, Kensington/Chelsea etc.
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>> and permanently rehome all residents within three months as close to their original home
>> as possible.
That commitment may have been a surprise to Kensington and surrounding Boroughs.
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SQ 4 TLB
>> If the political will is there legislation is possible.
>>
I think you will find the Human Rights Act will prevent it.. (with the right lawyer)
After all, if we give a conformed and convicted terrorists legal aid to the tune of £200k + to fight extradition, thinks how much better a case a millionaire landlord will have....:-)
Last edited by: VxFan on Sat 17 Jun 17 at 20:44
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>> I think you will find the Human Rights Act will prevent it.. (with the right
>> lawyer)
The Act is UK legislation importing into domestic law the European Convention on Human Rights.
I quess you're referring to Protocol 1 Article 1 of the convention?
Every natural or legal person is entitled to the peaceful enjoyment of his possessions. No one shall be deprived of his possessions except in the public interest and subject to the conditions provided for by law and by the general principles of international law. The preceding provisions shall not, however, in any way impair the right of a State to enforce such laws as it deems necessary to control the use of property in accordance with the general interest or to secure the payment of taxes or other contributions or penalties.
Would depend on how a court interpreted the words I've bolded together with any compensation to mitigate the (temporary?) derivation involved in requisition or sequestration.
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Missed edit:
deprivation not derivation
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Any law allowing confiscation of private property by the state would encounter massive resistance in parliament and by the public. It would take years to debate and pass such a law if it were ever possible. The implications of the state having such powers and the possibility of extending them into other walks of live would be enormous.
The closest we have to such powers at the moment is compulsory purchase and such orders are usually subject to years of consultation delays and appeals and those who have their property purchase in such a manner are paid full market value in compensation. One would assume any new law would have to provide similar compensation and be massively expensive to implement
In short the idea is a non starter.
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I haven't read everything, but briefly; if I were to be taxed heavily on my home in the UK, I would sell it.
That might be 1 less house on the wanted list, but it'd also be that much money leaving the UK. Pretty much the same for everything I have, try to tax it too much and I shall simply take it away from the UK and then there'll be no tax revenue at all.
Still, if one is to believe Labour that's just me. Everybody else would stand still for the tax bill so the Government can just keep on raising taxes as and when it needs more money
I see no ships.
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And as the various absent oligarchs sold their property, the available supply goes up and the prices come down.
Sounds good.
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>>the prices come down
Surely briefly at best? The demand is endlessly growing. If you dumped 1,000 homes on the market, that presumably would just knock the prices back 6 months, and then they'd go back to growing.
Whereas tax is just a gift which carries on giving.
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>>Surely briefly at best? The demand is endlessly growing. If you dumped 1,000 homes on the market, that presumably would just knock the prices back 6 months, and then they'd go back to growing.
>> Whereas tax is just a gift which carries on giving.
There's always a law of diminishing returns on these things as you suggest, but behaviour change can be pushed by tweaking perceived costs.
Remember how car tax of 3-400 quid/year on cars over 225g/km CO2 destroyed much of that market (and also induced 'gaming' from manufacturers - isn't that always the way with tax?)
If council tax was scrapped, and a flat tax of ~1% of property value per year was charged instead (as an example), the attraction of having a portfolio of property would diminish and the desire to hang onto a 2nd or 3rd house just in case you want to use it a couple of times per year would be less.
Take Cornwall, for example, where some villages are >50% owned by absentees, perhaps City workers who want a holiday home - not great for community cohesion I would presume.
The role of government as I see it is to keep us safe, protect and improve our prosperity, and redistribute wealth which almost by definition in a market economy gravitates increasingly from poor to rich through time.
Or we can wait for the inevitable collapse of the next human empire...
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>>>Take Cornwall, for example, where some villages are >50% owned by absentees, perhaps City workers who want a holiday home - not great for community cohesion I would presume.<<<
I am not thoroughly versed in the Cornish market, but I suspect that some parts of the local economy benefit from 'outsider' part time occupation. Local builders probably do very well, estate agents, and other service industries, probably provide employment for more than just the peak holiday period. It would also be interesting to see what the effect is on local authority income vs cost of ( unused) services.
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>> I am not thoroughly versed in the Cornish market, but I suspect that some parts
>> of the local economy benefit from 'outsider' part time occupation. Local builders probably do very well, estate agents, and other service industries, probably provide employment for more than just the peak holiday period. It would also be interesting to see what the effect is on
>> local authority income vs cost of ( unused) services.
>>
How do local builders, estate agents and other service industries do any better than they would if the houses were occupied? Less well in most cases.
We have a few villages with 50% holiday occupation, people come down for the weekend with the car stacked with provisions they bought at their local Tescos and apart from a meal out they contribute very little to the local economy. Then most of the year the places are like ghost towns.
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My mate who owns a place in a village close to Lands End often admits that outside money has priced the locals well and truly out of the market.
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London tower block fire - Zero
