David, it’s a luxury provided by a civilised society and funded by others. Therefore, there is the matter of taking what is offered by the State rather than specifying one’s terms. For those who want to stay in Kensington … I’d love to live around there but can’t afford it, the cost per square foot is prohibitive. So if alternative accommodation is offered in a cheaper area then I’m afraid I don’t have a lot of sympathy with those who refuse it.
Have you got no compassion Sandy§
These people have gone through misery; hell and lost their family home
and family members.
the dollar sign was an error
yes I have a lot of compassion Barbara and can’t imagine what they are going through. But the fact is that if there is no accommodation available in Kensington then you can’t just conjure any up out of thin air. I understand families are in B&Bs and hotels and that all sorts of resources are available, but temporary accommodation is not cheap there. There’s a middle ground between an emotional response and a practical one.
How do you create a middle ground?
Are you sure that there is no accommodation in Kensington and Chelsea?
How well do you know it?
I’m probably reading the same reports as you Barbara - about 125 flats, housing 600 people. And also this https://www.rbkc.gov.uk/housing/social-housing/social-housing-borough There just isn’t the room. Neighbouring boroughs like Camden and Fulham are also pressed for accommodation. If there just isn’t the capacity then you have to find an alternative.
And middle ground? As I understand the families have had emergency payments and special case workers to assist them. Yes it doesn’t replace the loved ones nor their possessions but huge resources are available to them.
Can I ask how you would propose to deal with it?
if I were in the position to make decisions for others in Kensington I would be living there now
and doing my very best to help them. I left because it was difficult for the right things to live on.
So many things were wrong…and now possibly worse.
What would I have done…
Bought a hotel and created flats for the victims.
At a price a hotel could be bought.
I could have bought K WEST hotel for one and a half million pounds!
Where there is a will there is a way.
“The Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea is an inner London borough of royal status. As the smallest borough in London and the second smallest district in England, it is one of the most densely populated in the United Kingdom.” Wikipedia
You knew someone who had suffered a tragic loss & it is right that you should offer sympathy & support. You care for this person.
I do not personally know any of the Grenfell families or have friends that do so, although I do understand what they must be going through. This goes for most of the population. I cannot grieve for everyone who dies in a tragedy otherwise I would be doing/feeling nothing else! I do not understand why so many people do.
These people are quick to express their feelings for complete strangers provided there is enough publicity or so it seems to me. Of course the tragedy has to be somewhere in the UK too. Similar tragedies have happened all over the world - Malaysia 1993, 48 dead. Missouri 1981,114 dead. Thailand 1993, 137 dead. India 2013, 2 incidents, 135 dead & of course Russian shopping mall, this year, 64. Terrible accidents which may have been avoidable. No outcry from us here to demand justice for those people although we did not personally know any of those victims either.
Not everyone is as rich as you Barbara.
Yes terrible accidents which would have been prevented if there was not so much greed in the world.
But there is and we get emotional when people die before their time in tragic circumstances;
No we can not cry for every one but we should help the victims find a way to enjoy the rest of their life. Where they are is where they wish to be.
Not rich…never been rich.
If I was, perhaps I would have stopped working…like most people do when they reach a
certain age.
It’s also funded by the inhabitants of "social’ housing through their taxes and rents. It’s not a dole of accommodation for the labouring poor.
Council houses were supposed to be for people who could not afford to buy their own house and quite right too.
Where it went wrong was that the leases were able to be passed on to other members of the family even though their circumstances had changed.
Not really relevant but some of the Grenfell flats were privately owned (leasehold) and I wonder whether the owners will have to wait until the enquiry has concluded before receiving any insurance payout?
A situation which seems to be a commonplace in London but not elsewhere in the UK. Just another example of the sort of mismanagement which seems typical of the modern London Borough.
You should have added ‘and sold without replacement housing stock being built’.
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Of course it is a witch hunt. Who was responsible for failing, or worse still ignoring, to be advised of the fire hazards.
I think it is probably just as well that this is not a “Jury Trial”… it must be well nigh impossible to find 12 people who have not already formed strong views on this case …
It will (in my opinion) be conducted in as transparent a way as it is possible to do. But, even so, I suspect there will always be those who will be at odds with the official findings.
I Lived in London all my life and I know others very well who are still there.Look at all the figures you like but there will be a way that they can be changed to make them look pretty.
Council houses were a way to house people who just could not afford to buy. I lived all of my childhood years in council flats. Ask me about London and council flats.
I’m not at all sure that council houses were built for people who could not afford to buy. My parents who were born in the years immediately after the turn of the century (meaning the early 1900s) did not know the meaning of property-owning. Their own parents were tenants, and they bought their new-build semi in 1937 for £200. Most of my extended family lived in rented accommodation, some of it social housing, and it was the respectable norm for many working people, who didn’t see any reason to buy the house they lived in.
I lived in “tied” rented accommodation as a NHS manager well into my 40s. Buying a house was always beyond my means. But I felt no sense of shame or deprivation.
The mythic importance and bogus ‘status’ of home ownership is a political construction crucial to capitalist ideology, and still corrupts British society, pervading its institutions, adding to the sum of human misery, and to violence and other crime.
Time for a change. Grenfell is just a straw in the wind. Only a socialist society will restore sanity.