Dear friends
To Destroy the Lies Before the Grow: Community Education, paid because it cannot survive if it is not funded.
It is a Call for true Public Education in Brisbane, South-East Queensland, Queensland.
A damning final report into Britain’s worst residential fire since World War II blamed a litany of cost-cutting, dishonest sales practices and lax regulation for the blaze that killed 72 people.
The 1,671-page final report laid out a litany of corner-cutting, dishonest sales practices, incompetence and lax regulation that led to the tower being wrapped in cheap flammable cladding, which, after it caught fire in the early hours of June 14, 2017, quickly turned the building into an inferno.
1. A Conservative-run local council, eager to reduce costs, working with careless, acquiescent contractors who installed combustible cladding panels, purchased from suppliers who knew they should never have been used in a high-rise building;
2. The suppliers “engaged in deliberate and sustained strategies to manipulate the testing processes, misrepresent test data, and mislead the market”;
3. Arconic, an American aluminum maker formerly known as Alcoa… sold the cladding for Grenfell, the report said, but “deliberately concealed from the market the true extent of the danger” of using it in a high-rise structure;
4. Grenfell has become a politically charged symbol of the hazards of deregulation and of the persistent social inequality in Britain’s capital;
5. In 2023, about 900 people settled a civil case against the local government, the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, as well as companies that sold the cladding and insulation. The settlement, worth 150 million pounds, or $196 million, was mediated by David Neuberger, a former president of Britain’s Supreme Court;
6. “I really feel strongly that we shouldn’t have to wait another two or three years to see prosecutions…”. The solution: Community Education before the potential disaster.
Yes, I am very righteously angry; this is all common sense, and yet without well-funded community education, large sections of society, including professions, just don’t get it: wilful ignorance.
Featured Image: Creating a safe and welcoming environment to promote open discussions at community meetings. AIG53M. A varied assembly of individuals is actively participating in a dialogue at a community event in a comfortable setting. AIG53M AI generated. ID 330196408 © BiancoBlue | Dreamstime.com
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Neville Buch
Professional Historian at Professional Historians Association (Queensland) Inc.
Neville Buch (Pronounced Book) Ph.D. is a certified member of the Professional Historians Association (Queensland). Since 2010 he has operated a sole trade business in history consultancy. He was a Q ANZAC 100 Fellow 2014-2015 at the State Library of Queensland. Dr Buch was the PHA (Qld) e-Bulletin, the monthly state association’s electronic publication, and was a member of its Management Committee. He is the Managing Director of the Brisbane Southside History Network.
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