Grenfell was built in 1974, an austere concrete tower of 120 flats spread over 24 floors, its design in keeping with the Brutalist style of the day. Unprepossessing as it and many similar towers across Britain may have been, early residents were proud to live in these modern dwellings. Strong community bonds formed throughout their halls and stairwells. [...]
As the moneyed enclave of Notting Hill, where the stucco-fronted terraces have long been a magnet for the great and the good, began to march west, the area surrounding the Lancaster West Estate, in which Grenfell Tower is situated, became a front line in the inexorable gentrification of central London. A three-bedroom townhouse in Portobello Square, not 200 meters from Grenfell, costs £2.1 million (around $2.7 million). [...]
In January 2016, Jeremy Corbyn, then an embattled Leader of the Opposition, tabled an amendment in the U.K Parliament that would have required landlords to ensure that their homes were “fit for human habitation.” The Conservative majority, 72 landlords among them, voted it down. A few months later, the £8.6 million refurbishment of Grenfell, overseen by the Kensington and Chelsea Tenant Management Organisation (KCTMO), was completed. The sprinkler systems that could have helped to prevent the disaster to come were deemed superfluous. But money was found to improve the building’s aesthetics. The now infamous cladding, white and grey polyethylene panels which were already banned in the Germany and America, were chosen instead of the fire-resistant alternative, for a total saving of under £300,000. [...]
You could hear its promulgation in David Cameron expressing a desire to “kill off health and safety culture for good” in 2012, and in the Brexiteers promising “a bonfire of regulations.” You could hear it in the hypocrisy of those who cheered the heroism of the London firefighters battling their way up the smoking tower even though they had condemned their right to protest for fairer fire service pensions three years before. And now you can see it looming over North London, a soot-strewn edifice in the sky.
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