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It’s been four years since the tragedy of Grenfell Tower on June 14 2017 – a devastating fire that killed 72 people and left its scar for ever on the community of North Kensington.
This month, it is expected that ministers will announce that the gutted building will be demolished amid safety concerns. The Sunday Times reported that senior Whitehall sources said that government-hired structural engineering experts recommended ‘unambiguously and unanimously’ that the tower should be ‘carefully taken down’.
The government-commissioned safety report from May stated:
‘There is unanimous agreement and unambiguous advice from all the technical experts and engineers involved in the Grenfell project that the Tower should not be propped for the medium to long-term but should be deconstructed at the earliest possible opportunity, with deconstruction commencing no later than May 2022.’
But survivors and campaigners are understandably unhappy about the lack of consultation from the government in reaching the decision. According to a group of survivors called Grenfell United, fewer than ten bereaved and survivors were consulted on their thoughts about the decision to demolish the tower.
Grenfell United’s statement said they were ‘shocked’ by the news, ‘given the promise by the government that no decision would be made on the future of the tower without full consultation with the bereaved and the survivors’.
The statement continued:
‘Given what we went through, safety has always been paramount and we have had previous assurances that the tower can be kept safe for as long as it needs to be, and that it poses no risk to the community around it.’
However, the BBC has reported that a spokesperson for the Ministry of Housing, Community and Local Government said it knew how ‘important and sensitive’ the issue of the future of Grenfell Tower was and that a decision had yet to be taken.
This theatre group is helping to rebuild its community after Grenfell.