"The Making of a Death Trap" Private Eye on the Lakanal House fire.

Eye-opening read from Private Eye on why the the fire at Lakarnal House should not have been so deadly.

http://bit.ly/3k2IkE

Southwark Council don't come out of it well at all.

Worth adding that last week the council released the fire risk assessments for three other blocks, including Perronet House at the Elephant:

http://www.southwark.gov.uk/MediaCentre/Homepagenews/fire.html

People died because they were told to stay put.

Might be sound advice if the flats had adequate fire proofing but as the building regulations are fairly non existent now, particularly in Southwark where there's pretty much no Building Control at all, you cannot rely on any post war property being reasonably fire resistant.

Thats why Davies they should stop the plan to demolish Darnay house and the blocks behind, top of abbey street, good solid pre-war properties with a square in front for children to play in.little bit of refurbishment..

Some of the residents who lost their homes in Lakanal are being rehoused in the Bolanachi Building on Spa Road SE1(6)

Believe it or not we were blighted by dossers and junkies for years in Devon Mansions. They used to go to our roofs and stay there for days if not weeks till they got moved by the Police every now and then. Southwark Council didn't do anything for years.
It was only thanks to “one particular leaseholder” who involved the Health and Safety Executive, as the Council's Environmental Health Officers weren't interested, that Southwark Council eventually carried out some works to stop them from gaining access to the roof.
Of course as leaseholders we were made to pay dearly for that but I think it was a price worth paying for.

Jan the old one wrote:

Thats why Davies they should stop the plan to demolish Darnay house and the blocks behind, top of abbey street, good solid pre-war properties with a square in front for children to play in.little bit of refurbishment..

I totally agree. They just need a decent refurb but instead are being replaced by massive buildings up to 10 storeys high. We will get yet another "shopping precinct" instead of open play area.

Was on duty that day and know of many peeps in my line of work that go into the building that caught fire and similar buildings on a daily basis.

Those sort of buildings have always been seen as "fire death traps"

The fire doors are usually wedged open by the residents , bags of rubbish dumped in corridors and stairways , any type of dry riser used by the fire brigade to assist them with fighting fires in high rise buidlings vandalised .....

was a tragedy waiting to happen :(