THERE is nowhere in Britain where the difference between rich and poor is more stark, more evident, more entrenched or more enforced than in North Kensington.

As a direct consequence of the fire, 72 lost their lives, 70 were injured, many critically, hundreds lost their homes, and thousands in the surrounding area suffered complex post-traumatic stress, anxiety and depression.
 
The mental health response following the Grenfell Tower fire is the biggest operation of its kind.
 
In 2017, health professionals estimated that over 11,000 people in North Kensington's mental health could be impacted. Many would not seek treatment, and it could take decades before the full effects of the fire upon the local population are fully known and understood — but the money is running out and services are being wound down.
 
In 2019, a secondary trauma was sustained by this community when inquiry expert Professor Anna Stec published a report claiming that toxic chemicals released in the smoke, dust and fire effluent posed a serious risk to the health of residents living in the surrounding area. Although Stec called for a public health programme to monitor the effects of the fire, this has been met with confusion.
 
For decades, air quality under the Westway, a major road transporting 13,500 vehicles every day through the heart of North Kensington, has been a major health concern.  
 
Stec’s claims fuelled angry public meetings and a stand-off between the community and the authorities in the absence of any clarity on the long-term impact of the fire on the health of the surrounding residents who were exposed to toxic dust, smoke, debris and fire effluent, as well as pre-existing background pollution from the Westway.
 
For the bereaved, survivors, residents and campaigners, the relentless struggle for justice, accountability and recognition that their lives matter has taken its toll.
 
Moyra Samuels grew up under apartheid in South Africa. She’s lived in North Kensington for the last 30 years and campaigned throughout that time on air pollution, housing, and racism.

A seasoned grassroots activist, Samuels has been instrumental in keeping the focus on the issues that led to the fire.
She says: “Trauma does not have a sell-by date,” and believes that “the Grenfell fire disaster opened a window on the functioning of our capitalist society.”
 
Meanwhile, thousands of new luxury homes are planned for a huge development on the Kensal Gas Works site. The site is unlikely to include a fraction of the social housing needed to clear the  Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea housing waiting list which is longer than in the immediate aftermath of the second world war when North Kensington suffered heavy bombing.
 
Kensington and Chelsea is the only area of London where the population is falling.
 
Many who lost their homes moved away.  Others in the wider community, who could not face looking at the tower day after day, sought refuge elsewhere.
 
They still return to visit, unable to quite sever their ties to this strong and vibrant community in a small pocket of west London, under the Westway.
 
I returned to Grenfell on a warm sunny afternoon in  the last week of May this year.
 
Instead of the scenes of chaos, confusion, grief and rage I witnessed in the weeks after the fire when the streets were full of people, photographers and reporters, Latimer Road seems smaller, quieter, and more contained.
 
Six years earlier, the tower loomed over the area, heavy and dark, but today the building seems to disappear into the sky, its future uncertain as community groups argue for its retention as a memorial site.
 
On this sunny afternoon in May, in the cafes that act as community hubs, the talk is of the coming silent walk for the sixth anniversary.
 
In the early days, thousands gathered below the Westway on the 14th day of each month, but recently, I’m told, numbers have dwindled. It's not a lack of interest.
 
Samuels says: “It’s been a tough journey. People have fewer resources to fight because they are trying to keep body and soul together. They’re having to hold their children, their families, the impact that this has had on families. We need to be concerned about physical health but we also need to be concerned for people’s mental health. I really fear for my community’s mental health.”
 
She concludes: “It’s a continuation of the sense that you are on your own, this is not important  and you are not important.”
 
Outside the foodbank under the Westway, a crowd of around 100 people gathers. It’s the same at every other foodbank across North Kensington. There are seven. Our benefits system won’t provide financial support for more than two children in low-income families.
 
Deprivation is worse in North Kensington now than it was before the fire.
 
The air quality around the Westway and North Kensington is deemed by the World Health Organisation “unsafe.” The advice for those living in tower blocks overhanging the Westway is to keep their windows closed.
 
A group of children are playing happily on the grass in the shadow of the tower, surrounded by their parents and playworkers from the local leisure centre.
 
The little boys laughing in the unexpected warmth of a lazy summer’s day under the Westway will enjoy, on average, a life expectancy of 17 years less than the public-school children in blazers being walked home by their nannies to the south of the borough.
 
This is a ghost town where shells of buildings remain, and people have been brought to their knees.
 
If the language is emotive, it needs to be.
 
Samuels told Morning Star: “Grenfell was such a visceral example of how the message from the state, the corporates and the government was that you are not important.”
 
The sixth anniversary of the tragedy marks another line in the sand between the closing arguments of the Grenfell Inquiry and the publication of the inquiry’s chair, Sir Martin Moore-Bick’s, findings next year.
 
The inquiry report is expected to be a shocking indictment of the 20 corporations, Kensington and Chelsea council, and government departments whose conduct contributed in some way to the creation of the biggest fire in post-war Britain.
 
The compensation deal has been ratified in the High Court, and 900 of the bereaved, survivors and residents of the surrounding area received a £150 million settlement. In what some regard as the cruellest cut of all, the government-led compensation scheme has pitted neighbour against neighbour.
 
Those who have been excluded from receiving compensation because the scheme was never publicised to everyone whose health and homes had been affected feel angry and betrayed.
 
Samuels told us, “Given the circumstances, the community needs opportunities to become empowered. How do you empower communities in these circumstances when the fight for justice appears to be paused?”
 
What happened here at Grenfell, before, during and after the fire, marks Britain forever.
 
For six years, the bereaved, survivors, residents and campaigners have worked themselves into the ground trying to cope. Some, like Justice4Grenfell campaigner Amanda Beckles, took their own lives.
 
Following Beckles’s death police found two notes. One said: “The Grenfell Tower fire has affected me badly... I really don’t know why it has affected me so badly, but it isn’t a life worth living.”
 
The people I met last month are ill, exhausted and depleted. They fear for their health, their children, and their future, clinging desperately to a precarious existence.
 
What will it take for the lives of people like Rania Ibrahim trapped on the 21st floor of a council tower block counting down the minutes to her death, whispering her prayers to God, to matter?
 
What will it take for everyone in our society to be extended the basic human rights of clean air to breathe, food to eat, and a safe, decent home to sleep peacefully in?
 
Indeed, just what will it take, if the causes and aftermath of the Grenfell fire disaster aren’t enough?
 
The left cannot regard the Grenfell disaster as a tragic fire in a run-down 1960s tower block in a forgotten part of London.
 
Grenfell is the line in the sand.
 
Today, we must remember. To Rania, Amanda, the 72, the bereaved, survivors and the communities of North Kensington, the left sends a message.
 
We remember, we will not forget, your lives matter.
 
Always and forever in our hearts.