The UK government has opted to tear down London’s Grenfell Tower, where 72 people died in a 2017 blaze, according to a group representing relatives of the deceased.
Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner confirmed the news to a group of survivors and relatives of the victims on Wednesday, said the advocacy group Grenfell Next of Kin in a statement.
The government is expected to make a formal announcement on Friday, reports The London Standard.
The plans to demolish the tower have angered some family members who want it to stay up until criminal charges are brought over the failings that led to the fire, or preserved as a memorial.
“Angela Rayner could not give a reason for her decision to demolish the tower,” said Grenfell United, a separate group representing relatives of the fire victims.
“She refused to confirm how many bereaved and survivors had been spoken to in the recent, short four-week consultation,” the group said. “But judging from the room alone – the vast majority of whom were bereaved – no one supported her decision.”
It added: “Ignoring the voices of bereaved on the future of our loved ones’ gravesite is disgraceful and unforgivable.”
Grenfell Next of Kin acknowledged that the tower, which is structurally compromised, “cannot be propped up indefinitely due to safety concerns”.
“We want a discussion about the facts – the structural issues that have informed this decision,” said Grenfell Next of Kin. “We want a discussion about what will go in the Tower’s place.”
Previously, the government said it would not alter the site, which it has been advised should be “carefully taken down”, before the eighth anniversary of the tragedy on June 14.
A six-year public inquiry into the fire found that the disaster resulted from “decades of failure” that put profit before safety.
The inquiry’s report, released last September, highlighted failures by successive UK governments, local council leaders, the fire service and the companies involved in the production and installation of the flammable cladding and insulation that allowed the fire to spread so rapidly.
Karim Mussilhy, 38, whose uncle died on the top floor of Grenfell Tower, told Al Jazeera that the community has been “failed in every single aspect … before, during and after the fire, by [the] government, by corporations, by local authorities, by police, everybody failed us”.
Source: Aljazeera
