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What next for Grenfell?

Despite protestations to the contrary it would seem that despite an initial lacklustre display of concerted action, the survivors of the Grenfell Tower fire are now being provided with financial and emotional support.

Indeed, the authorities are housing survivors in hotel accommodation at public cost while efforts to secure permanent homes are in progress.

Alas, the efforts of the State are once again being criticised as being too little, too late’ although it has to be said that whatever was done would never be enough for some people.

According to the Guardian newspaper (so it must be true) the survivors have now made 12 written demands of the Government, including the removal of Sir Martin Moore-Bick as chairman of the public inquiry and a demand that the composition of the public inquiry be entirely changed amid fears that it will be a whitewash.

The demands have been drawn up based on feedback from a meeting of about 150 survivors of the fire and BMELawyers4Grenfell, a team of black and minority ethnic lawyers who are supporting them.

I am sure many people will be amazed that after less than four weeks the main concerns of some survivors, or would that be people supposedly acting in their best interests, is to make demands such as:

A response team to be available to survivors 24 hours a day.

The removal of Sir Martin Moore-Bick as head of the inquiry.

The centralisation of all donations into one charity and a full record of money collected.

Confirmation in writing from the Home Secretary within 28 days that undocumented survivors are given full UK citizenship.

A guarantee the interim findings will be made public within four months.

I have every sympathy for the victims of the fire and would expect everything possible to be done for the survivors.

However, I am not sure that any undocumented survivor (for which one could read ‘illegal immigrant’) should automatically be given full UK citizenship.

Sadly, it would appear that some people have sought and continue to make political and social mischief out of this incident which, while a real tragedy, is no different from the fire in Swindon’s Manchester Road which claimed the lives of Blaise and Sharon Alvares, leaving their 17-month-old daughter Brooke an orphan.

DES MORGAN, Caraway Drive, Swindon

Cladding regulations

It IS preposterous for the national media to declare that some local authorities chose to save some money by selecting one form of building cladding over another, if the Fire Regulations of the EU or the UK had not already decided that both were legal.

Either they are or not. Councils have no authority whatever to decide what materials they think are available, outside what has been included by rigorous scientific testing by the State’s Regulatory Authority, based on the final authority of science.

It is possible for the stupidity of some councillors or the greed of some contracting company directors to decide on some material excluded from that statutory choice, but that would be a criminal act, involving all parties, openly to defy National Safety Regulations.

So, if some criminals had made such a corrupt decision, the evidence of their guilt is still available to fire and building inspectors, in written form to take to court, at the time or 20 years later.

Few criminals would be so stupid as to take the risk, if they believed that they could be so easily incriminated.

The media claims that fire regulations are difficult to understand, which may be true, so long as experts who do understand are involved in checking what is happening on the ground.

Even a schoolboy should be able to perceive the lunacy of running gas pipes up the sides of an internal stairwell, which becomes a chimney to the fire, where the heat may well rupture the flanges of the gas pipes.

The Fire And Safety Regulations are there in written form. All that is required, is the interest of those not closely involved, into the actions of those who are closely involved, and that the scope and responsibility of Fire Inspection Officers should be extended more widely.

CN WESTERMAN, Meadow Rise, Brynna, Mid Glam

The Swindon Disease

Your headline on page 5 of July 4 was in my opinion very misleading: ‘2500 dying from Swindon disease’. On reading the small print, 2,500 is for the whole country. Why call it Swindon disease? Why not call it after Crewe, Derby, York or any other railway town?

Mesothelioma is not linked to just the railways but with any industry that works closely with asbestos.

You state that your newspaper has been standing up for Swindon since 1854! If a stranger to the town read your headline they would think that people were dropping like flies. Some days you focus on Swindon’s wonderful railway heritage and glorious past then we get a crudely put together article like yesterday’s. As a born and bred Swindonian of 83 years I implore you to stop using the name of our town in this way.

FOJ GLEED, West View, Swindon

Mesothelioma has been dubbed ‘the Swindon Disease’ for many years, due to the disproportionately high number of people from the town affected, usually men from the old rail works. It is not, of course, exclusive to the town, and our 2,500 referred to the UK total.

Over the years, we have followed this issue closely and highlighted cases where bereaved families from the town have rightfully claimed compensation from the Department of Transport (SA July 3, ‘A moral victory’), as a show of our support.

Today, on Action Mesothelioma Day, we will be reporting on a memorial event at Queen’s Park to highlight the fact that cases of this horrible disease are sadly expected to continue rising until 2020 - Editor