In the early hours of Monday morning this week, more than seven years after the tragic Grenfell disaster, which claimed the lives of 72 people, a cladding fire engulfed the Spectrum Building in Dagenham.
Thanks to the efforts of over two hundred firefighters, no one died in this blaze. Over one hundred people were evacuated, with two hospitalised.
60 households have now been left homeless, however, and a number of residents lost all of their possessions in the inferno.
Negligence
Like the residents of Grenfell, Spectrum’s inhabitants also repeatedly warned about fire concerns.
As far back as 2018, they had raised issues with the wooden decking on balconies, and had notified the property’s managers about broken fire doors.
In September 2020, an external wall survey concluded the block did not meet building regulations, due to the presence of flammable Trespa cladding panels and spandrel panels.
The developers and owners – Chadwell Properties and Arinium, respectively – effectively sat on their hands and did nothing.
Again, in 2023 the London Fire Brigade issued an enforcement notice to the building’s management, Block Management UK.
It was whilst this dangerous cladding was being replaced – almost four years after the initial survey – that the fire broke out.
Residents reported that fire alarms failed to go off, and there was even a padlocked gate barring an exit, with survivors having to climb over this in order to escape.
These residents were living in a death trap. The outcome could easily have been very different.
As campaign group Grenfell United have stated: “The fact that when a fire happens, the best we can hope for at the moment is ‘a near miss’, speaks volumes of the progress made since 14 June 2017.”
National scandal
To add insult to injury, residents had been facing service charge hikes, as the owners forced them to foot the bill for removing cheap, cost-cutting cladding.
The third of residents who were leaseholders were also saddled with mountains of debt – stuck in unsafe, unsellable flats, unable to afford to live elsewhere
This cladding scandal has been rolling on for years, with little-to-no action being taken by the big construction companies or the government.
Of the 4,600 buildings identified as having unsafe cladding after Grenfell, only half of them have had work commenced or completed to replace them.
Currently, 600,000 are living in unsafe housing, and three million are trapped in homes that they cannot sell, according to the British Safety Council.
To this day, none of the construction bosses or developers have been brought to justice over Grenfell.
It’s clear that, both under the Tories and Starmer’s Labour, profits continue to be placed before lives. The housing and construction industries remain rotten to the core.
How many more tragedies like this will happen until the crooks responsible are brought to justice?
We say:
- Make the billionaires and profiteers – not residents – pay for the cladding crisis!
- Expropriate the big housing developers, construction companies, and banks to fund immediate repairs to all unsafe buildings!
- Put building management under the democratic control of workers and residents!
- For a socialist plan of production to ensure safe, high-quality housing for all!
