Wednesday 14 June 2017

Daily Mail On Top Form

From The Daily Mail:

The fire that swept through a 27-storey west London tower block in just 15 minutes after a faulty fridge exploded could be one of the worst in British history amid fears nobody on its top three floors survived.

Twelve people are known to have died after fire engulfed Grenfell Tower in White City after 1am today - but Scotland Yard expects the death toll to rise and there are claims the true number could be 'more than 50' or even higher...

Grenfell Tower is council-owned but the management of the building is down to an independent company - the Kensington and Chelsea Tenant Management Organisation (KCTMO) - whose stock consists of 6,900 rentable homes and 2,500 leasehold properties having been handed a contract in 1996...

Robert Black is the company's Chief Executive Officer and he took office in 2009 having previously worked as Executive Director of Service at Circle Anglia for five years where he was responsible for services for 45,000 homes across seven companies including asset management. He is a father of [an unspecified number of children] who lives in a £1 million house in South East London with his wife of almost 20 years.


In an unusual display of respect for the bereaved, the Mail resisted the temptation to point out that flats in the block changed hands for about £500,000 £160,000.

18 comments:

James Higham said...

So important to know how much someone's house is worth.

Mark Wadsworth said...

JH, yes.

mombers said...

I'm waiting to hear what contribution Right to Buy slumlords made to this. More likely for a fire to start in a poorly maintained BTL than the council one next door. That said, the problem appears to be with the cladding, which should be designed, built and maintained by grownups regardless.

Ralph Musgrave said...

The flats changed hands for £500,000. Cricky. Where's the evidence for that? I thought Grenfell was social housing.

Graeme said...

The management company is run by the tenants not by slum landlords. I am waiting for DBCR to come along and say how great it is to have the tenants in charge.

Mark Wadsworth said...

M, me too.

RM, plenty were sold off, I checked selling prices on mouse price.com or somewhere.

G, not really, the council chose the manager, not the tenants.

paulc156 said...

500K? Said 160K on Today prog Rad 4 this am. Just checked on rightmove and they come in with 160K last September.

Mark Wadsworth said...

PC, ta, I will update.

Graeme said...

From the website:

The KCTMO Board is made up of 15 Members comprising of eight residents, four Council appointed members and three independent members.

Lola said...

In my days in civil engineering, especially in my building design days, firestop design in high rise buildings was a major consideration.

Here, if there were no, or an inadequate number of, or poorly designed firestops behind the cladding - assuming it was fixed by some sort of stand-off and hence creating a chimney effect behind the cladding - that would basically be an absolute no no.

On the other had, as I far as I can see, the concrete core holding the lift shafts and the fire stairs did not lose any of its structural integrity.

So the standard advice - to stay in your flat as it should be a fire proof box was basically sound, if it was not for the apparent flammability of the cladding.

I am very interested to see the results of the official report.

Mark Wadsworth said...

G, aha, now that is interesting. So how do we work out why those tenants would vote for such a shit job to be done on their own flats?

L, it will make for grim reading, that's for sure.

Lola said...

Serendipity AGAIN...
https://blogs.spectator.co.uk/2017/06/grenfell-tower-blaze-disaster-waiting-happen/
Para 5. Blair, again

Bayard said...

Mark, perhaps because there's the Board and then there's the people who actually run the company, who contrive to keep the Board in the dark to their own benefit in many cases.

paulc156 said...

I appreciate that a number of residents are on the board that probably didn't have the required technical details on the fire safety of the cladding etc but apparently the company that runs the management of the block is apparently non profit making. So presumably it can't be fir reasons if personal gain that the cheaper type of cladding was chosen?

Ralph Musgrave said...

On second thoughts, £500,000 could be the genuine free market price for one of those flats, given that they're in Kensington. So is the £160,000 price a genuine free market price????

paulc156 said...

I'm wondering whether there is a big variation in the value of the flats. I've also heard rents of £2000pm being quoted in the press which does suggest a rather amazing yield on 160K. Perhaps flats on the lower floors incur a mark up. Perhaps some of the flats are studios some could be three bed.

Ralph Musgrave said...

paulc 156, The £2,000 per month could be what genuine tennants at Grenfell get when they sub-let. And there's bound to be some of that going on at Grenfell.

Mark Wadsworth said...

RM and PC, do you realise we are turning into the daily mail, the very thing I parody? The rents and house prices at grenfell tower are completely irrelevant!