Smoke billows from a fire that engulfed the 24-storey Grenfell Tower in west London, on June 13, 2017
A GRENFELL Tower survivor who publicly predicted the blaze said yesterday that government failures to make changes five years on feel “almost like a betrayal.”
On the anniversary of the fire, Edward Daffarn, who escaped the blaze from his 16th-floor flat, described Grenfell as a “tragedy in three acts,” with the third being failures by the housing department to implement changes over the last half a decade.
The first of those acts, he explained, was the mistreatment of tenants by landlords, who failed to address health and safety concerns raised by residents in the years preceding the blaze.
As we approach the half-anniversary of the Grenfell tragedy, the community gathers to remember loved ones while grappling with mixed emotions surrounding the ongoing deconstruction of the tower and the hopeful plans for a memorial, writes EMMA DENT COAD
Our housing crisis isn’t an accident – it’s class war, trapping millions in poverty while landlords and billionaires profit. To solve it, we need comprehensive transformation, not mere tokenistic reform, writes BECK ROBERTSON
