Vocal Voices

The manifestation of the *group think* phenomenon pervading all walks of public life: "It sounds good, so we should do it".

We see it all the time. £millions spent on new ideas that do not last five minutes, or ones that once imposed can never be reversed: 20MPH speed limits, anyone!?

We have created a system where people with minimum life skills dictate to those at the chalk face how they should behave and react, but hey, these people have an *ology* so must be listened to and obeyed.

The biggest problem is that when their schemes do not work out they are never held responsible, they just move onwards and upwards. Hopefully that will now cease following the Grenfell disaster. It is long past the time when those making these decisions are held fully responsible, and if that means prosecutions under the law then so be it.

I wont hold my breath.

Workingman wrote:The biggest problem is that when their schemes do not work out they are never held responsible

The excuse is always that the policy wasn't wrong, it was the implementation of the policy that was wrong! Ergo, public sector management can never be wrong, it's always someone lower down the food chain that was wrong.

What a job! Power with no responsibility. The more "strategic" your job is, the more secure it is and the more you get paid; it's the same throughout the public sector.

Following new safety checks we now learn that there are 27 blocks in 15 council areas deemed to be unsafe - there will be more in the coming days. That puts at least 15 *teams* of people under suspicion of failing in their work and it also calls into question whether previous/current fire safety checks were/are fit for purpose.

The situation has also moved on from high-rise homes to offices, hotels, hospitals, in fact all high-rise developments. Nobody seems to know when all this will be resolved, or at what cost in terms of disruption to life and economically.

It seems to me that the problem now-a-days is that many people in responsible jobs are not
prepared to put in the necessary amount of thought into whatever are their particular duties.
Why this is so I don't know, but I do wonder whether the much increased use of, and reliance
on, electronic gadgets has resulted in a reduced use of brain power. The saying, "'If you don't
use it, you will lose it" springs to mind. Certainly, something seems to be going wrong.

Might this be a possible reason?

My question is going to be this.

How many private blocks, checked by the council planning department, have the issue and how many council blocks, given a waiver under a certificate of comfort, by the council planning department, have the issue??

Then, when this reality shows, what will be done about it??

That, for me, will tell.

I can't even begin to understand why you would even design a cladding that wasn't fireproof

miasmum wrote:I can't even begin to understand why you would even design a cladding that wasn't fireproof

Not just you....

You then have to wonder why it would ever be used....

And then you wonder how a building covered in it could ever have passed a fire safety check....

The number of buildings has now risen to over 60 and the failure rate is 100% for those tested.

This has gone nationwide in England, with more than 500 buildings still to be tested. If only half of them fail and they have similar resident numbers as the ones so far evacuated there could be around 100,000 people needing temporary accommodation in the coming weeks and months.

miasmum wrote:I can't even begin to understand why you would even design a cladding that wasn't fireproof

Absolutely this. Someone somewhere decided that it was OK to clad tower blocks in inflammable material. How and when that happened needs to be established and the person or persons jailed.

Workingman wrote:...... and the failure rate is 100% for those tested..

This has to be of huge concern. It's not just one builder or local authority. Is it even one manufacturer?

It has to be a failure at building regulations level, surely?