@peteapps.bsky.social
Inside Housing + freelance elsewhere. Author of Orwell Prize winning Show Me The Bodies - How We Let Grenfell Happen. https://peteapps.substack.com
@peteapps.bsky.socialIn Manchester tomorrow evening for with Isaac Rose of Greater Manchester Tenants Union for a discussion about the housing crisis. A few (free) tickets left if anyone is about: www.eventbrite.com/e/a-tale-of-...
@peteapps.bsky.socialSome thoughts on the Grenfell criminal process here.
This week’s news is an important milestone in the process. But that’s all it is: the end of the process remains a very long way off:
@peteapps.bsky.socialThe CPS has committed to making charging decisions before the 10th anniversary on June 14 next year. If they charge, trials (assuming not guilty pleas) would follow in 2028/29
@peteapps.bsky.socialWhen we last had an update in May, the Met was considering charges for 57 individuals and 20 companies. Which mean they have submitted files on all but three of them. No names or further details yet
@peteapps.bsky.socialBreaking: the Met Police has submitted charging files to the Crown Prosecution Service resulting from its Grenfell fire investigation. The files cover 54 individuals and 20 companies and cover charges including fraud, misconduct in public office and manslaughter
@peteapps.bsky.socialIn the FT this week, writing about why it costs so much to get your home done up and why Putin and Trump are at least partly to blame
@peteapps.bsky.socialGood to chat to Literary Listings London about Homesick. Nice write up here:
@peteapps.bsky.socialWhat's going to happen when a generation of private renters start to retire with no housing security?
This week's Substack (an extract from Homesick) asks a question that housing policy is frighteningly unwilling to contemplate:
@peteapps.bsky.socialTo be fair to me, if you read the full thread or the article, I make it clear that I'm not linking the death to the cladding and that the investigations are ongoing. Full design drawings would be nice! Finding them easier said than done...
@peteapps.bsky.socialHomesick - which follows the story of how London became so unaffordable over 40 years through the eyes of a cast of characters who lived it - is out in paperback today!
You can get a copy here:
@peteapps.bsky.socialOverall - it will be a familiar story to anyone who lives in a similar building. Serious questions about the risk of how long it takes us to remediate; the control of interim safety measures and what is really being offered to residents with disabilities in these buildings
@peteapps.bsky.socialFire appears to have jumped one floor, and ignited the balcony decking on the flat above - but no suggestion that this contributed to the death. Investigations in that regard are ongoing and will take a while
@peteapps.bsky.social... to communal areas was turned off, which meant emergency lighting and alarms didn't function. - Also, accounts of a man carrying his disabled wife down the stairs raise questions over what had been done to offer a Residential PEEP (a legal requirement since April)
@peteapps.bsky.social... which happened on Friday last week - just before the fire. Remediation is very complex, particularly as the development is boxed in by the DLR and a major road. - A burst pipe caused a major flood in the building just hours before the fire, and it looks like power
@peteapps.bsky.social- Barratts decided to remediate the panels and combustible balcony decking in 2024. A planning application was approved in September 2025. A Gateway application went to the Building Safety Regulator in February this year. It took 31 weeks for the BSR to approve it...
@peteapps.bsky.social- There had been a long process of working out whether or not the building needed remediation. First graded B1 under EWS1 (combustible but no remediation), then B2 (remediation recommended). PAS 9980 gave it 'medium' risk but recommended further testiing
@peteapps.bsky.socialMore detail about the building in Poplar where a man died in a fire at the weekend:
- Building was fitted with combustible Hemsec insulated panels, which were non-compliant at the time of build (oddly described as 'inflammable' by the manufacturer)
@peteapps.bsky.socialJoining Isaac Rose of the great GM Tenants Union for a (free) event in Manchester on the evening of October 13, where we'll be chatting about how both cities became unaffordable places of the last few decades and what we can do about it:
@peteapps.bsky.socialBut we do know that this was one of thousands of buildings around the UK where - for a huge range of reasons - known fire risks are allowed to remain unremediated year after year. Eventually there will be fires.
@peteapps.bsky.socialGovernment website says a Building Assessment Certificate was refused by the Building Safety Regulator in November last year. This is not hugely unusual (refusal rates are high), but does show the BSR was not totally satisfied with the safety case produced by the managing agent
