> Local residents always complain about everything.
In this case there had been a previous fire that revealed that the cladding was dangerous.
The residents were complaining not about the same kind of abstract risk that we deal with in IT, like "what if Microsoft Azure ceases to exist overnight", but a real risk of death with a recurring proximal cause.
The flat members had spent serious time and effort trying to bring attention to their plight, and they were ignored.
This was the worst part for me. You could literally see the words online of the resident who said that if nothing was done this would end with charred bodies.
It's not such an exaggeration to say that corporate manslaughter was legalized here.
> The residents were complaining not about the same kind of abstract risk that we deal with in IT,
No, I agree. I should have been more nuanced in my point. during renovations the sheer number of complaints are enormous.
They range from (and this is based on personal history):
o We don't want a flat roof, they leak
o the scaffolding is allowing people to climb into my bedroom
o the builders are swearing
o the builders are dropping rubble on the walk way
o we are being charged to much for item x, look here's a quote from supplier z
o I don't like that the builders are speaking language y
o they are using flammable hole filler
I was lucky that on my estate we had a number of people who both had the ability to get the council to do things, and run multi-million pound public procurement contracts. we had the expertise to tackle both the council , the Quantity surveyor, the main contractor, the sub contractors and the site team.
our estate was just under a thousand homes. Grenfell was < 200. Whats more there were less people in grenfell that had grown up with the council house system. We were lucky that we had a number of residents that moved into the place originally, so knew all the tricks.
Again, I'm trying to get across that its not as clear cut in hindsight.(apart from the corruption, that is clear cut.) The residents would be complaining about safety because thats often the _only_ way to get people to listen.
This should not however lessen the tragedy, and more importantly the motive to change. None of this is acceptable. Residents should be listened to. Standards should never be corrupted.
It seems there wasn't collective agreement with residents about safety concerns of the cladding, since if there was, surely residents wouldn't have rejected the installation of an adequate sprinkler system? The council leader has publicly said residents (collectively) didn't want the added disruption during the refurbishment.
In this case there had been a previous fire that revealed that the cladding was dangerous.
The residents were complaining not about the same kind of abstract risk that we deal with in IT, like "what if Microsoft Azure ceases to exist overnight", but a real risk of death with a recurring proximal cause.
The flat members had spent serious time and effort trying to bring attention to their plight, and they were ignored.