London Grenfell Tower disaster inquiry

This British TV video says about itself:

Musician Akala: People died in London fire ‘because they were poor’

15 June 2017

Jon Snow spoke to the MOBO award-winning musician and writer Akala and local resident Joe Delaney about their response to the fire at Grenfell Tower in west London.

Akala told Jon Snow:

“The people who died and lost their homes, this happened to them because they are poor.

“We are in one of the richest spaces not just in London, but in the world.

“Repeated requests were ignored.

“There is no way rich people live in a building without adequate fire safety.

“Everyone I spoke to who was out there couldn’t hear alarms, there was no sprinkler system”.

From daily The Morning Star in Britain today:

MORE than 500 people have applied to be core participants in the Grenfell Tower fire inquiry.

Those granted the status will have the right to ask questions during the hearings as well as access evidence.

The number of applicants leapt from 300 when the inquiry launched on September 14 to 500 yesterday.

Many survivors are among those to have applied to be core participants, some as part of campaign groups such as Justice4Grenfell but others have applied individually.

Some groups automatically qualified for the status, including survivors of the fire and all individuals who were residents of Grenfell Tower at the time of the blaze.

The inquiry will be split into two phases. The first will examine the immediate causes of the fire and how it came to spread with such deadly effect.

In the second stage, the refurbishment of the tower will be put under the microscope — investigating how and why it came to be wrapped in flammable cladding and insulation.

Friday 13th October 2017

A STAGGERING 28 per cent of fire safety inspectors have been slashed by the Tories and their lackeys, a shocking new report revealed yesterday.

West Yorkshire Fire and Rescue, which covers one of England’s biggest cities, Leeds, was hardest hit, losing 70 per cent of its inspectors since 2010, freedom of information requests by the Fire Brigades Union (FBU) show.

And fire services in Gloucestershire, Durham, Cumbria, Norfolk and Avon all lost more than half of their fire safety specialists.

The real figure could be much higher as some fire and rescue services didn’t even know how many inspectors they had in 2010, said the union.

The crucial inspectors are responsible for ensuring that communal buildings such as Grenfell Tower and public spaces meet fire safety standards.

FBU general secretary Matt Wrack said: “Fire safety specialists play an essential role in the fire service.

“They help to enforce fire safety regulations that save lives and prevent damage to property. Fire services need proper funding, more inspectors and greater support if they are to continue keeping people safe.

“Grenfell Tower has underlined the importance of fire safety in buildings. The drastic cut in fire safety inspectors makes it much more difficult for those remaining to do their job effectively.

“The government needs to wake up to what endless budget cuts have done to the lifesaving fire service.”

In Scotland, firefighters are checking two private tower blocks in the Glasgow Harbour development “every four hours” over fears they are built with the cladding material used on Grenfell.

http://morningstaronline.co.uk/a-f3c2-Tories-have-cut-fire-safety-inspectors-by-more-than-a-quarter-since-2010#.WeB56ztpEdU

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