Scrutable

The cavalcade of buck-passing goes on. Some details here. Largely full of grime.

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/202 ... quiry-told

More here.

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/202 ... -notebooks

A project manager on the Grenfell Tower refurbishment has admitted “binning” her notebooks relating to the revamp despite knowing a public inquiry and police investigation were under way.

She was questioned after it emerged that her former colleague, Peter Maddison, disclosed notebooks containing “material of the utmost relevance” to the inquiry only at the end of last week.

Is that obstructing the course of justice?

Slightly off topic, but my aunt has been trying to sell her flat and is struggling because the building is still covered in Grenfell-style cladding. Property surveyors are warning buyers off buying them, but the property management company has done f.ck all in addressing the problem so far, and apparently the UK doesn't have any regulators.

Bird on a Fire wrote: ↑

Mon Oct 19, 2020 9:44 pm

Slightly off topic, but my aunt has been trying to sell her flat and is struggling because the building is still covered in Grenfell-style cladding. Property surveyors are warning buyers off buying them, but the property management company has done f.ck all in addressing the problem so far, and apparently the UK doesn't have any regulators.

Our daughter has been looking at buying a flat recently, and a lot of them in her area are basically "cash buyers only, because there's no way you'll get a mortgage on anything in this building".

Bird on a Fire wrote: ↑

Mon Oct 19, 2020 9:44 pm

Slightly off topic, but my aunt has been trying to sell her flat and is struggling because the building is still covered in Grenfell-style cladding. Property surveyors are warning buyers off buying them, but the property management company has done f.ck all in addressing the problem so far, and apparently the UK doesn't have any regulators.

Is it a private management company or a local authority ALMO?

It's private.

Serious question - why does the UK suck so much at really basic things like not having flammable death trap apartments?

You'd think the Tories would at least want to protect property owners' investments, but apparently their priapism at the thought of poor people burning to death is deemed even more valuable.

You and Yours had a bit yesterday about being stuck, unable to sell homes, when you're in a building with the dodgy cladding. I don't think they had any kind of solution though - it's just an utterly sh.tty situation to be in and there seems to be absolutely no way out. Sorry that your aunt is one of those affected, BoaF.

jimbob wrote: ↑

Mon Oct 19, 2020 9:12 pm

More here.

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/202 ... -notebooks

A project manager on the Grenfell Tower refurbishment has admitted “binning” her notebooks relating to the revamp despite knowing a public inquiry and police investigation were under way.

She was questioned after it emerged that her former colleague, Peter Maddison, disclosed notebooks containing “material of the utmost relevance” to the inquiry only at the end of last week.

Is that obstructing the course of justice?

Could be. Note that they also last week disclosed that they'd broken EU procurement law, by telling the main contractor that the price would need to drop before announcing the bid winner.

Listening to the podcast week on week, it's just apparent that it's an utterly pathetic and damning failure at pretty much every level - yes, people made individual mistakes, but it goes all the way up to systemic legal and regulatory failure as well.

Dangerous products for sale from suppliers who didn't give a sh.t. Contractors who never signed a contract. Contractors who were essentially unqualified, with no experience in high-rise cladding. Mystifying building regulations. No one examining the cladding used. Safety reports produced which never got read. Overworked and underqualified building regulators who didn't check things properly. Fire safety experts who never completed the job and were mostly ignored anyway. Unrealistically low budget expectations from one of the wealthiest councils in the country. Resultant "value engineering" (read: cost-cutting) sessions which didn't seek to prioritise safety. A Tenant Management Organisation who didn't give a f.ck about tenants. Terrible project management. Ignoring of residents. Belittling of complaints. People having roles who disagree that they had those roles, or that the roles they had were actually those roles in reality. And so on and so on.

It's going to be a nightmare to say exactly who is at fault for what, because everyone is at fault and blaming each other, the law is unclear and the way that these projects are carried out now are just a huge mess of clients and contractors and PMs and subcontractors, often without formal contracts and often without formal designation of responsibility, legal or not.

bagpuss wrote: ↑

Tue Oct 20, 2020 8:19 am

You and Yours had a bit yesterday about being stuck, unable to sell homes, when you're in a building with the dodgy cladding. I don't think they had any kind of solution though - it's just an utterly sh.tty situation to be in and there seems to be absolutely no way out. Sorry that your aunt is one of those affected, BoaF.

This Guardian article about a 2006 built development where 900 residents have been evacuated due to concerns about the implementation of fire safety design features
https://www.theguardian.com/society/202 ... -brentford

And the current Private Eye has:

More than 16,500 fire doors in local authority housing are overdue for repair or replacement, freedom of information requests have revealed.

Bird on a Fire wrote: ↑

Tue Oct 20, 2020 12:53 am

It's private.

Serious question - why does the UK suck so much at really basic things like not having flammable death trap apartments?

You'd think the Tories would at least want to protect property owners' investments, but apparently their priapism at the thought of poor people burning to death is deemed even more valuable.

That's not fair. Those new expensive designer high rise apartments for yuppies are likely also deathtraps.

El Pollo Diablo wrote: ↑

Tue Oct 20, 2020 9:31 am

A Tenant Management Organisation who didn't give a f.ck about tenants. Terrible project management. Ignoring of residents. Belittling of complaints. People having roles who disagree that they had those roles, or that the roles they had were actually those roles in reality. And so on and so on.

Interesting that the name seems to suggest that their role is managing tenants rather than properties. My own experience with an ALMO suggests that they regard residents as a nuisance who get in the way of their grandiose business plans.

"My idea of a perfect school is a school, is one in which there are no children at all. " -Miss Trunchbull

Bird on a Fire wrote: ↑

Wed Oct 21, 2020 5:23 pm

"My idea of a perfect school is a school, is one in which there are no children at all. " -Miss Trunchbull

As usual, Yes Minister was there ahead of us!

Opening statements of module 2 this week, which deals with the manufacturers of the insulation and cladding.

Listenjng to the podcast at the moment, and one of the opening statements says that Kingspan, who provided some insulation when there was a supply issue with the main supplier, provided a product which was "tested" and passed in 2005 in a large scale, 6m rig test, so was certified for use, according to Kingspan, and marketed on that basis.
It was apparently the first time a plastic-based insulation product had passed a rig test.

Except... Firstly, the certification only applies to the full combination of insulation, cladding and cavity barriers used, and some of the materials weren't commercially available, so the certificate was invalid on that basis. And Kingspan changed the formula a year later, but continued to use the certification, which made it doubly invalid. And when Kingspan had it tested a year or two later, it was described as a "raging inferno". And staff knew this was f.cking dodgy but continued to sell it on the basis that it had passed the test.

This set a precedent across the industry for PU and polyisocyanurate materials to be used on high rise buildings.

Kingspan withdrew the product's test a week ago, saying the product tested was different to that which they've sold for the last fourteen years.

Shocking evidence of full-on criminal fraud as opposed to just negligence

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/202 ... quiry-told

Staff at Kingspan, a company that made some of the combustible material used on Grenfell tower, joked in 2016 that claims about how safe the product was were “all lies” and it should be scrapped.

Text messages sent the year before the June 2017 disaster, which claimed 72 lives, suggested the employees believed the company was lying to the market about the fire performance of the “sh.t product” but one of them appeared to think that was funny, the public inquiry heard.

And
https://www.architectsjournal.co.uk/new ... ucts?tkn=1

Product manufacturer Kingspan rigged fire performance tests for rival products as it lobbied MPs not to ban combustible materials from high-rise buildings following the Grenfell Tower fire

Kingspan’s director of technical, marketing and internal affairs Adrian Pargeter denied to the inquiry yesterday that this was a deliberate attempt to mislead MPs.

When asked by Richard Millet, counsel to the inquiry, why the HCLG Committee was not told about the tests being deliberately constructed with weaknesses, Pargeter said: ‘Well, we could have done, but we didn’t.’

Millett suggested the omission was a ‘deliberate attempt to deceive [HCLG committee chair Clive] Betts, and the select committee’ and that the entire document was based on ‘evidence … which was gamed’.

How come those c.nts aren't in prison yet?

Because of the terms of the inquiry, and the willingness to learn from the huge list of mistakes that happened, people can give privileged testimony which can't incriminate themselves. However, their evidence can be used to bring charges of corporate manslaughter, criminal negligence or individual negligence, as well as HSE prosections as well.

It remains ot be seen whether these will be prosecuted at all, but specifically whether it's done so at a corporate level or not.

Also worth posting this blogpost from before the fire

https://www.grenfellactiongroup.wordpre ... mp/?espv=1

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, and bring an end to the dangerous living conditions and neglect of health and safety legislation that they inflict upon their tenants and leaseholders.

We have blogged many times on the subject of fire safety at Grenfell Tower and we believe that these investigations will form a crucial part of a damning catalogue of evidence showing the poor safety record of the KCTMO should a fire affect any other of their properties and cause the loss of life that we are predicting:

Anyone who witnessed the recent tower block fire at Shepherds Court, in nearby Shepherd’s Bush, will know that the advice to remain in our properties would have led to certain fatalities and we are calling on our landlord to re-consider the advice that they have so badly circulated

Dunno if anyone's been following this lately but here's how the Cladding Fire Safety Scandal is going:

Cold.

An unnamed official replied: “The government is aware of the effect that ongoing building safety concerns may have on the mental health of residents … If you feel able to, you can discuss any difficulties with your GP who will be able to signpost you to suitable healthcare services, if appropriate. You can also access support from the Samaritans by calling freephone 116 123”.

f.cking hell