DUP Gets £1 Billion As Local Authorities Get Zilch To Make High Rise Homes Safe

The prospect of another inferno killing whole families in the same way as Grenfall Tower in Kensington and Chelsea, just got a reality check as the Tory Government refuses to fund local authorities in their need to repalce illegal cladding from the outside of their high rise flats.

The reality is this - another Grenfell Tower disaster is almost certain to happen due to the lackl of funding of local councils and because of further cust the Tories are imposing upon them!

The truth of it is that Tories do not care about the lives lost in the richest borough in the country, nor do they care about the possibility of a second infirno as a result of illegal cladding being used by private housing organisations, putting profit before their tenants lives.

However, the Tory Government is quite happy to shell out £1 billion for the Democratic Unionist Party as a bribe to prop up it's minority government to ensure it delivers a hard brexit, the end of worker's rights and finally the privatisation of the NHS!

Reported by today's Indepenent newspaper (27th June), the disgusting attitude of May and her Government puts paid to the their lies and claims that they care about the people of this country.

Not only have they ognbored and buried the recommendations made by the coroner following the 2009 fire which killed 6 people in the Lakanal House in South London, they continue to see health and safety, including fire safety, as unafordable and burdensome Red Tape.

In the Independent newspaper article it states that 95 high-rise buildings in 32 local authority areas have failed safety tests according to the Department for Communities and Local Government (DCLG); with hundreds more high rise resedential buildings still to be tested.

It adds:

"But despite emergency fire safety checks being carried out nationwide under central government direction, councils will not be reimbursed for refurbishment work carried out.

A DCLG spokesperson said there was “no guarantee” of central government funding and that it would be "up to local authorities and housing associations to pay" for the work needed to ensure residents’ safety.

The spokesperson said financial support would be considered on a “case by case” basis for those that could not afford to carry out the necessary work, but did not clarify what the criteria for that consideration would be."

The same article also quotes Julie Dore, leader of Sheffield City Council, which is among the authorities to have discovered unsafe cladding, as stating that councils would be forced to make cuts to other areas, including schooling, if central government did not help with costs.

It quotes her:

“Local authorities have been starved of money over the past seven years. Our spending power has decreased.

There is no way we can afford to reclad our tower blocks. If we have to find that money, it will come from other projects, from investing in the fabric of our schools, capital investment in our infrastructure, the money has to come out of that. And it can’t really be done.

I say absolutely, categorically that the Government should pay. If they can find £1bn to send to Northern Ireland, that gets more spending per capita than anywhere else, to buy 10 votes, then these people, living in high-rise towers, deserve better.”

Source: The Independent / The Guardian

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