A year ago yesterday was the devastating fire in Grenfell Tower, London, that took 72 lives and shattered hundreds more. It’s hard to find the words to talk about this deeply sad event without confronting an array of emotions: anger at the apparent management negligence of this council property, disbelief that fire safety was either deliberately disregarded or negligently overlooked, distress when reading about the wonderful people that lost their lives that night, empathy for the families that have to pick up the pieces, and solidarity for the survivors and the wider community fighting for justice.
A public inquiry is under way that will explore what led to such a tragedy, and how to prevent another. This is running alongside a criminal investigation, which is looking into possible individual and corporate negligence. The results of these investigations will not be out for many years, but we don’t need them to know that something is desperately wrong with the housing sector in the UK.
We have discovered since the Grenfell fire that many more tower blocks are clad in this cheaper, but highly flammable, material. We are also seeing, a year on, that so many families who survived the disaster are still in temporary accommodation. This situation speaks to a wider problem with which we are all familiar: there is simply not enough council housing across the country. Not in overall numbers, and especially not in boroughs with high land value.
Solidarity marches were held across the country yesterday to commemorate the tragedy and raise a collective voice demanding justice and change. SaveOurHomesLS26 Campaign Activists Cindy Readman and Hazell Field attended yesterday’s march in Leeds attended on behalf of our community and raised their voices to share our story about housing insecurity in Oulton.
The victims of Grenfell and their families deserve justice. And we all, as a nation, deserve housing that is available when we need it, and that is safe and secure over the longer term.
#SaveOurHomesLS26 