The country watched on as fire engulfed Grenfell Tower in the early hours of June 14, 2017, people were trapped inside the burning building after being told by housing association KCTMO to stay inside their flats in the event of a fire within the 27 story block which had a £10 million revamp just twelve months ago. This included new plastic cladding installed on the building exterior and it is believed this is what helped the fire spread dangerously fast killing what is now being reported as twelve people with many more fatalities expected to be announced over the coming days.
I’m proud of the way I have covered the Grenfell Tower fire today and fought for the voice of the people highlighting the route cause of the fire within minutes ahead of CNN even who contacted me thinking I was affiliated with the Grenfell Action Group given the speed I went for the jugular of the story casting light on the darkness that laid beneath the disaster with this article and various live streams where I documented key facts, exposed corruption, brought more disgusting crisis actors under the microscope and broadcast opinions of the public who are angry about last nights events, with my platform we are given a voice to speak, the voice of the people, Enchanted LifePath #WeAreTheNews.
Alternative news has been wiping the floor with mainstream news for a long time and this is another example of us being the only place you will gain such information.
Grenfell Tower Fire Inside Job: Resident Reacts Angrily Live On BBC News Stating “This Was No Accident”
A local man reacted angrily during a live interview, which was broadcast by BBC News, claiming the fire was no accident and targeted blame towards the government and housing association saying it was easier to “knock the towers down than to keep them”.
The man known as Peeky said: “at 2 am I seen that one line of fire, it seemed contained at the time,
He then changed his angle on what he was saying and launched a stinging assessment of how the fire may of been planned by the under fire housing association and local council officials saying: “I am not going to lie, this thing that they are saying that it may of been a fridge that exploded or something, I do not know about that.
“What I do know is they did regeneration just last year to that building, out of all of these buildings they did it to that building only, £10 million they are talking about to put these shoddy plastic things up there which set alight to give them more reasons to knock the buildings down.
“There is two options they can either regenerate the blocks or they can knock them down and after that (the fire) I am not totally sure that was an accident, I am not going to lie, I am not, the whole situation that is going on in this area, the way they do not want us here.
He then hinted at a form of social cleansing taking place claiming property developers have put “rich mans blocks over there and tell us we can’t even go into that section, that’s outrageous”
“I can’t even take the belief out of my mind this was not an accident”.
This is not the first time the concerns have been raised about local housing associations governance of fire safety of tenants at Grenfell Tower with various warnings made by a support group known as Grenfell Action Group who have campaigned against KCTMO (Kensington Chelsea Tenant Management Organisation) branding them a “mini mafia” stating it will take a catastrophe to put those in power to justice.
A statement on the groups website read:
Watching breaking news about the Grenfell Tower fire catastrophe. Too soon to even guess at numbers of casualties and fatalities
Regular readers of this blog will know that we have posted numerous warnings in recent years about the very poor fire safety standards at Grenfell Tower and elsewhere in RBKC.
ALL OUR WARNINGS FELL ON DEAF EARS and we predicted that a catastrophe like this was inevitable and just a matter of time. Below is a list of links to previous blogs we posted on this site trying to warn the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea who own this property and the Kensington and Chelsea Tenant Management Organisation who supposedly manage all social housing in RBKC on the Council’s behalf.
This came after warnings were made time and time again by Grenfell Action Group who will now surly be pushing for criminal charges to be made in the aftermath of the fire at Grenfell Tower.
Articles and information which are publicly available show the extent of the problems raised with nothing done to prevent today’s fire
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 believe that the KCTMO are an evil, unprincipled, mini-mafia who have no business to be charged with the responsibility of looking after the every day management of large scale social housing estates and that their sordid collusion with the RBKC Council is a recipe for a future major disaster.
Unfortunately, the Grenfell Action Group have reached the conclusion that only an incident that results in serious loss of life of KCTMO residents will allow the external scrutiny to occur that will shine a light on the practices that characterise the malign governance of this non-functioning organisation. We believe that the KCTMO have ensured their ongoing survival by the use of proxy votes at their Annual General Meeting that see them returned with a mandate of 98% in favour of the continuation of their inept and highly dangerous management of our homes. It is no coincidence that the 98% is the same figure that is returned by the infamous Kim Jong-un of North Korea who claims mass popularity while reputedly enslaving the general population and starving the majority of his people to death.
It is our conviction that a serious fire in a tower block or similar high density residential property is the most likely reason that those who wield power at the KCTMO will be found out and brought to justice! The Grenfell Action Group believe that the KCTMO narrowly averted a major fire disaster at Grenfell Tower in 2013 when residents experienced a period of terrifying power surges that were subsequently found to have been caused by faulty wiring. We believe that our attempts to highlight the seriousness of this event were covered up by the KCTMO with the help of the RBKC Scrutiny Committee who refused to investigate the legitimate concerns of tenants and leaseholders.
We have blogged many times on the subject of fire safety at Grenfell Tower and we believe that these investigations will become part of damning evidence of 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:
https://grenfellactiongroup.wordpress.com/2013/01/28/fire-safety-scandal-at-lancaster-west/
https://grenfellactiongroup.wordpress.com/2013/01/30/more-on-fire-safety/
https://grenfellactiongroup.wordpress.com/2013/02/21/another-fire-safety-scandal/
https://grenfellactiongroup.wordpress.com/2016/01/24/grenfell-tower-still-a-fire-risk/
In October 2015 a fire ripped through another KCTMO property, the 14 storey Adair Tower in North Kensington, causing mass panic and resulting in a number of residents taken to hospital suffering from smoke inhalation. It is reported that had it not been for the swift actions of the London Fire Brigade the consequences of this fire and potential loss of life could have been much worse.
In the aftermath of the Adair Tower fire the London Fire Brigade found that the KCTMO had not been looking after the safety of residents properly and issued an Enforcement Order compelling them to improve the fire safety in the escape staircases and to provide self closing devices to all the tower block’s front doors. A further audit by the London Fire Brigade of the neighbouring Hazelwood Tower (located alongside Adair Tower) found similar breaches of health and safety legislation and an Enforcement Order was also issued for this property forcing the TMO to address the serious concerns of the Fire Brigade’s inspectors. What is shocking is that a decade ago a fatality occurred due to a fire at Hazelwood Tower and the Fire Investigation Team ordered that the grills on the fire escape staircase be covered over. This never happened and it is believed that the uncovered grills at Adair House (Hazelwood Tower’s twin block) acted like a chimney and were responsible for the accelerated spread of the fire and smoke damage.
In the last twenty years and despite the terrifying power surge incident in 2013 and recent fire at Adair Tower, the residents of Grenfell Tower have received no proper fire safety instructions from the KCTMO. Residents were informed by a temporary notice stuck in the lift and one announcement in a recent regeneration newsletter that they should remain in their flats in the event of fire. There are not and never have been any instructions posted in the Grenfell Tower noticeboard or on individual floor as to how residents should act in event of a fire. 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.
The Grenfell Action Group predict that it won’t be long before the words of this blog come back to haunt the KCTMO management and we will do everything in our power to ensure that those in authority know how long and how appallingly our landlord has ignored their responsibility to ensure the heath and safety of their tenants and leaseholders. They can’t say that they haven’t been warned!