Grenfell Tower 2nd Anniversary

On Monday (10 June 2019), the Housing Secretary made a statement on the Government’s response to the Grenfell Tower fire two years ago.

The Housing Secretary said the disaster had met with an unprecedented Government response. He said the Government had spent £46 million and committed a further £55 million to help meet rehousing costs, cover site management costs, deliver new health and wellbeing services and provide improvements to the local estate. He said all 201 households that lost their homes had accepted permanent or temporary homes, although he was concerned that three households remained in emergency accommodation. He also highlighted a recently launched consultation on building fire and safety regulations, as well as action to make buildings with unsafe aluminium composite material (ACM) cladding safe.

Unfortunately, the Housing Secretary’s statement offered no new announcements or action. It will have given little comfort to Grenfell survivors and families. As they themselves have said, little seems to have changed in the last two years and justice still seems far off.

A national disaster on the scale of the Grenfell tragedy requires a Government response on the same scale. Peter Dowd said, “I do not believe this has happened. Action has been too weak and too slow on every front. There has been failure to rehouse survivors, to give justice to the Grenfell community and to re-clad other dangerous high-rise blocks. Today, and every day, we stand together with the Grenfell community.”