Feb. 7 (UPI) — The British government said Friday the Grenfell Tower in west London, where 72 people died in a 2017 fire, will be taken down.
Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner decided that the tower will be “carefully taken down to the ground,” after meeting with bereaved families, and shared her decision with them and community area residents.
“This is a deeply personal matter for the people affected and the deputy prime minister is committed to keeping their voice at the heart of this process. She recognizes how difficult it is for them and her priority has been to let them know her decision first,” a statement from the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government said Friday.
The ministry said lives of the deadly fire’s survivors were forever changed and that the tower “remains a sacred site.”
The ministry said the tower remains stable due to special measures to protect it after the fire. But there is significant damage.
There are mixed views among families of the victims about whether to create a memorial rather than take the tower down.
But engineers have said it isn’t practicable to keep many of the floors of the building in place as a memorial that would have to last in perpetuity.
“Taking the engineering advice into account the deputy prime minister concluded that it would not be fair to keep some floors of the building that are significant to some families, whilst not being able to do so for others and knowing that, for some, this would be deeply upsetting,” the ministry statement said.
The government said a specialist contractor will develop a detailed plan in coming months for taking the tower down.
There won’t be any changes to the tower before the eighth anniversary of the fire on June 14.
The government said it would like take two about two years to “sensitively take down the Tower through a process of careful and sensitive progressive deconstruction that happens behind the wrapping.”
The investigation of the fire found central and local government ignored, delayed and disregarded addressing the fire risk danger of flammable exterior cladding used on the tower.
A six year investigation concluded the fire was avoidable and residents were unsafe due to failings mostly caused by incompetence, dishonesty and greed.
Manufacturers of that cladding, the government report concluded, bore the largest responsibility because they deliberately concealed fire risks.