 It is the 27th of January 1925, and an old retired Field Marshal takes his last breath. Throughout his career, death and destruction was a necessary evil, spanning nearly 50 years. He has achieved many accolades. With many battles under his belt, and the high rank of Field Marshal, it is often customary for the person's legacy to extend beyond their family, and be recognised in the naming of roads and buildings. You see, the person we are talking about is only linked to this week's video in name, but the name would become a byword for neglect, tragedy, and the ever-looming spectre of brutalist high-rise apartment blocks that litter British cities. That man's name was Field Marshal Francis Wallace Grenfell. His name is remembered not for his actions on the battlefields of British colonialism, but instead a horrific building fire in the 2010s. Welcome to Plainly Difficult, my name is John and today we're looking at the Grenfell Tower Disaster. Background Our story begins nearly 50 years after Grenfell's death, with a need also common, that is housing, a need that would drive the UK to source quickly and easily built residential buildings. No more requiring social housing arguably was the nation's capital. One such development was the infamous Ronan Point, out towards the eastern end of London's vast metropolitan area, but another would be out in the west. This would be in the borough of Kensington and Chelsea, near Notting Hill to the east of Latimer Road tube station, which is around here on a map. In 1964 plans were proposed for redeveloping the slums of Nottingdale into a modern and brutalist social housing estate. These were all the rage in the 1960s, where London was still redeveloping after the destruction caused during the Second World War. The plan from architects Clifford Weirden and Peter Deakings was to build a housing estate, shopping piazza and a new Latimer Road, London Underground Station. To connect all the buildings, which would include a couple of tower blocks and a few smaller residential buildings, elevated walkways were planned. The original plans also looked to place decking over the roads for public spaces, thus hiding vehicle traffic from view. The newly reborn in 1965 Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea did not show much interest in creating two-story roads. I'm still trying to decide whether this was a good or bad concept. Probably bad as history has shown, we aren't very good at maintaining concrete infrastructure. As anyone who has ever had to rely on the Hammersmith flyover would probably agree with. And thank the satnav gods I have never needed to drive down there recently. Well, long story short, the new estate was to be less innovative after the council refused some of the more modernist concepts. But it didn't mean that it was a cookie cutter estate. It did have some interesting features. Deakings had previously helped with the designs of the Barbican Housing Estate, as well as the Golden Lane Estate. So by now he was a bit of a brutalist designed veteran. The plans would end up being scaled back when London Transport saw no need of building a new station. But the main tower block was retained. It would be named after a field marshal, Mr Grenfell. The disaster ronin point would directly influence design considerations for the main tower on the Lancaster Road, West Estate as it was known. As such, Grenfell would be built with an attention to strength. The idea was for the building to last well over a hundred years. To achieve this, Grenfell had a central core containing a lift, a single staircase, and vertical sections for the services like water, telephone and electricity. Coming into the core were external perimeter columns. A central boiler room was provided for hot water. This was situated in the basement and fed the whole housing development. Construction for phase one would begin in 1970, with Grenfell seeing initial works beginning in 1972. The building would be 67.3 meters tall, or 221 feet tall, and originally contained 121 and 2 bedroom flats. 20 of the 24 stories would be used for residential, with the bottom four being used for non-residential purposes, to help with the flexibility of accommodation. All internal partition walls were not structural. This could allow for reconfiguration later on. Something pretty handy for a local authority. Because of its flexibility, it was slightly unusual from other tower blocks of a similar vintage, and this was because it allowed the flats per floor to be six instead of the more common four. The floors contained a two bedroom flat at each corner, which was the standard arrangement for the time, but in between on the east and west face was a smaller one bedroom flat. Externally, the building comprised horizontal structural concrete spandrel panels, sliding aluminium framed windows, and non-structural white window infill panels. The tower was completed in 1974 and soon after opening its doors, the council started welcoming families to their new home. Grenfell, and its refurbishments and updates. As with most buildings throughout its life, it would undergo a number of modifications. One such was in 1985 with the replacing of front doors to the flats to self-closing fire resistant types. In the 1990s, in an effort to combat rising crime, a key fob system was installed, meaning in theory only residents could access the building. Between 2011 and 2013, the fire doors were again replaced with more modern compliant ones. Talking about fire, we need to discuss the design theory, and thus fire safety theory, prevalent in the UK when Grenfell was built. You see there was a glaring issue with high rise blocks, which Ronan Point highlighted, but it was known before and that was of fire. If there's a fire, say here, how can anyone get out safely? Well, how about if you don't need to get out at all? In theory, if the flat is fire resistant enough, then occupants can sit it out until help arrives. This was mentioned in the 1962 British Standard Code of Practice 3, Chapter 4, Precautions Against Fire The assumption should no longer be that buildings must be evacuated if a fire occurs, and high rise residential buildings should therefore be designed so that occupants of a floor above the dwelling which is on fire may, if they choose, remain safely on their own floor. It may be necessary to evacuate the floor on which the fire occurs and in some circumstances, those floors which are in the immediate vicinity of the fire, but the occupants of these floors should be free to reach safety in any other part of the building via the staircase. This would be known as the Stay Put Strategy, which in the event of a fire elsewhere in the building, the occupants are advised to remain in their own flats unless they are directly affected by fire, heat or smoke. All of this is fine and well as long as the building is actually fire resistant. The thinking behind the strategy does have merit as mass exiting of a building would hinder fire and rescue efforts as well as the risk of a potential of a staircase crush event. Think a mini Ibrox 1971, but again it is really dependent on the actual building, now there were issues with tower blocks of this era and one such is the single staircase. Now the tower block had had a few upgrades through its life, but after 40 years of overlooking Latimer Road it was time for a major overhaul and refurbishment. This came around with a planning permission request in 2012. Around the same time, Lead Better Construction Limited was appointed as lead contractor, but before works began in June 2014, Royden Maintenance Limited was eventually appointed for design and build contractor. This was because they undercut in price. The works were to include repurposing some of the previously uninhabited levels of the tower. These were the lower couple of levels. It would result in the creation of 9 new flats. This would also include structural work. In addition to this, a newer more efficient heating and smoke extraction system were to be employed, as well as renewed services piping and upgrades to the tower's lifts. But the main thing, at least to any passersby that would see the whole building, was that it was to be reclad, receive new windows and generally receive a more modern fresher external appearance. Essentially the tower was to get an entirely new external wall attached to the original concrete façade. This would in theory add to building insulation, thus improving efficiency. The cladding also offered a modernised look to the tower, hiding away the arguably dated Brutalus façade. After all, it was an eyesore in the line of sight of the trendy and expensive Notting Hill. I can being a little bit facetious, but improved external looks were one of the council's official goals. Roydon subcontracted out to Harley façades limited for the external cladding work. Whilst we are on the subject, let's look at the cladding in greater detail. The external cladding was made up of several layers. Firstly, directly connected to the original external walls was PIR foam insulation, followed by a 2 inch cavity and finished off with another layer of cladding in the form of ventilated rain screen panels made of aluminium composite material. The composite cladding was made of a 3mm thick core of polyetherene, bonded between two 0.5mm thick sheets of aluminium. These were mounted to the building via aluminium mounting brackets. The new windows would be mounted and glued to the PIR insulation. UPBC window jams will be mounted over the original wooden window frame and the insulation. It would create a wider window ledge as it covered the extra layers, added to the concrete façade. This system was more cost effective compared to others available on the market. The tradeoff was, however, that the more expensive options were more fire resistant. The materials used in the refurbishment would be a pretty hefty saving for Kensington and Chelsea TMO. The organisation formed to manage all of the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea's housing. Nearly 300,000 pounds in total, a pretty big cost reduction on a £8.7 million refurbishment project. This, and amongst other savings, would a reason for that contract to change in 2014. Regardless, the refurbishment was signed off and there it stood, tarted up to look pretty, a home for nearly 300 people. A home that should be safe, somewhere to put your stamp on. A place of comfort, family, entertainment, a space for memories, but occasional sadness, but not a deftrap. Well, until it was a fire. It is the evening of the 13th of June 2017 and a resident of flat 16 on the fourth floor is returning home. The time is 2330 and the Halu Kebedi goes to his living room. The two he is sharing flat 16 with are asleep. Kebedi goes to sleep on a mattress in the living room. Shortly after he is woken up by probably one of your worst nightmares, a fire alarm. He found out that his hot point fridge freezer in the kitchen was on fire. He goes to wake up the two other residents in flat 16. Soon after, at 54 minutes past 12, Kebedi makes a phone call to 999. Kebedi banged on his neighbour's doors to alert them of the fire and he began to evacuate the building. Six minutes after his call, the first of the London fire brigade reached the scene. The fire could be seen glowing through the window of flat 16. With two engines on site, another two were dispatched. More calls came in and the advice was given for residents to stay in their flats. This was because of the stay put doctrine. There was no central arm in the building and many higher up were not aware of the fire below. The first firefighters entered flat 16 at 107. At 108, the flames started to melt the UPVC window frames and fire began licking up outside the tower. The flammable cladding caught a light. The cavity between the cladding and insulation acted as a chimney sucking the flames up. At 114 in the morning, the firefighters started tackling the blaze in flat 16's kitchen, but it was too late and the flames had most definitely spread. Seeing the unfolding disaster, more engines and an aerial appliance were requested. Water jets from the ground couldn't reach higher than the fourth floor. Smoke had spread to above flat 16 into flat 26. Some residents on the fifth and sixth floors started to evacuate. By 118 in the morning, 34 of 293 residents had escaped and between 118 and 138, 110 had escaped. The flames spread up further behind the aluminium cladding. By 113 in the morning, the fire had spread in a shockingly fast rate and had reached Grenfell's roof. By now, around 20 fire engines had been dispatched to Grenfell. Soon after, Met Police officers arrived to create an exclusion zone and London ambulances began to arrive to treat the walking wounded. The smoke had spread into the lobbies of several floors. Many were trapped inside the flats by the ever-increasing smoke and flames. The only staircase had filled up with smoke. Between 130 and 158, only another 20 had managed to escape. The fire continued to spread sideways on the exterior and by 142 had reached the northern side. Firefighters were given flat numbers of confirmed trapped residents. However, communication via radio had broken down. Instead, the rescue efforts relied on runners and slips of paper to inform the fighters where the residents were actually located. This slowed down communications, meaning that firefighters by the time of reaching the flats found them to be empty as residents had fled the smoke. Although many were still on the phone to 999 dispatch, their updated locations couldn't be passed on to those trying to find them. After 2 o'clock in the morning, many desperate residents tried to communicate their location by flashing lights in their flats and sadly as many as four had no option when facing the flames but to jump from the building. The final two people to be rescued from the blaze were at the 605 and 807 in the morning but sadly not everyone had managed to escape. The fire would continue to blaze all the way to the 16th of June when in the evening it was officially declared over. The rescue efforts changed to recovery and evidence gathering. A total of 151 homes were destroyed by the fire. These were not just in Grenfell Tower but also the smaller three-story blocks adjacent to the high rise. The fire caused 72 deaths including one who died in hospital a day later and another who died in January 2018. Many were children and even a stillbirth was attributed to the fire. Needless to say the disaster cut deep into the local community. Needless to say an investigation would follow and this would come in the form of the Grenfell Inquiry which was announced by the then Prime Minister Theresa May on the 29th of June 2017 and oh boy it would uncover the neglect that went into that tower. The investigation and inquiry. Soon after the disaster on the 29th of June Theresa May announced that Sir Martin Morbick a retired judge would take the lead in the inquiry. Grenfell Tower was covered in scaffolding and a protective wrap to help preserve the evidence within. It was pretty clear the start of the fire was the fridge freezer in flat number 16. This melted away the UPVC window frames and jams that covered the highly flammable insulation. Once this was exposed fire was then able to spread into the cladding. The investigation quickly found the cladding to be the cause of the rapid spread but this was not very surprising to many. In 2014 the council were warned of their decision to use this type of cladding and insulation combination and it was advised to only use it in combination with a non-flammable insulation. It was also known as early as 2012 that Grenfell had some serious safety management issues. These included poor emergency lighting, firefighting equipment was improperly maintained including out-of-date extinguishers and other material going unchecked for years. These issues were just put aside and ignored hoping they would disappear. Some residents even formed a group called the Grenfell Action Group and even created a blog. They had in 2013 published a health and safety report from 2012 raising concerns about the fire safety of the building. The group also pointed out the lack of appropriate escape routes and that the hallways were allowed to fill with rubbish blocking off the paths of escape that did exist. In an ever classy move in 2013 the council threatened the bloggers with legal action saying that their posts amounted to defamation and harassment. Even more tragically two of the blog writers Mariam Elguari and Nadia Chauker would be amongst those who lost their lives in the fire. Now all of these concerns were apparent in Grenfell way before the refurbishment. It was found during the inquiry that in November 2016 the London Fire and Emergency Planning Authority served a fire deficiency notice to the Kensington and Chelsea Tenant Management Organization listing multiple safety issues at Grenfell that required action to be taken before May 2017 and unsurprisingly many of these were still not fixed in June. Now this would be hard to see as anything other than criminally negligent and on the 27th July 2017 the Metropolitan Police issued a public notice to residents saying that they had reasonable grounds to suspect that the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea and the Kensington and Chelsea Tenant Management Organization may have committed corporate manslaughter. However these charges have yet to be raised as the Grenfell inquiry has only just wrapped up. It is divided into two phases. Phase one, which has been the primary source for this video, was released in October 2019. This covered the facts about the refurbishment and the night of the fire. Phase two will try and find out who was at fault for allowing the refurbishment to take place as it did. As such charges are unlikely to materialise until at least 2023 or even 2024. Sadly this means that it could be seven years after the disaster until some action was taken legally. Some charges were brought for fraud however. In a disgusting effort of profit from others' pain 21 people tried to claim compensation for either being in the towel when they weren't or for family members who also weren't. They were charged and found guilty and sentenced for their fraudulent activity. But what of the towel now? Well it's still there awaiting the end of the inquiry. From there it will be demolished and turned into a memorial for these victims. The disaster shows the end result of negligence, penny pinching and under investment. The sum £300,000 saving would be eclipsed by the estimated £200 million to £1 billion in costs associated with the disaster. The disaster would also lead to the UK cladding scandal, which would financially ruin many as overnight their apartments became worthless due to insurance companies refusing to cover externally clad buildings. It also caused many residents to be rehomed or even just evicted as some buildings became condemned. Now there is a whole political, social and economic side to this disaster that I haven't even touched but that's because I don't feel quite qualified enough to speak on it. But I do recommend reading the inquiry report and Phase 2 when it's released. Although you'll probably be saddened and even more likely angered by the story of Grenfell. Now this subject I'm going to give the rating of outright negligence and 9 on my legacy scale. This is a plain difficult production. All videos on the channel are creative commons actuation share a light licensed. 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