You are seeing on a glimpse of a huge, interconnected social issue that I don't have the ability to competently articulate. Council housing obviously have a bad self-reinforcing image problem: no one wants to live in them, so only desperate people live there; because only desperate people live there, no one wants to live there. But that's because the government fucked it up, it's not an inherent attribute of social housing. UK had pretty good social housing post-war until Thatcher gutted it with things like Right to Buy.

If there is a solution to the worsening housing crisis, then social housing must be an integral part of that solution. So we must get building and normalize the image of social housing. I get quite mad looking at the current Labour government just sits doing nothing about it.

Grenfell Tower is its special kind of hell too. Sure the building itself wasn't kept up to standard, but also the abhorrent response to the fire. The residents were told to STAY PUT IN THE BUILDING ffs.

So yeah, makes me feel bad that brutalist architecture gets bad reputation in the UK despite they themselves doing nothing wrong.

[–] RedFrank24@lemmy.world 0 points 9 hours ago (1 children)

It's not the social housing that's the problem though, it's specifically the tower blocks. Social housing by-and-large worked pretty well, with some pretty nice council housing being put up and people living in them without too much issue. The thing is, there's a big difference between a socially isolated tower block and a council house in the suburbs, a lot of which was eaten away by Right-to-Buy because it turns out they were really nice houses so people wanted them. Almost nobody wants to buy a flat in a tower block.

The 'Stay Put thing for Grenfell Tower was actually good policy... When the tower was built. Each apartment acted essentially as its own fireproof box, so under the original design, staying put is actually the best policy to have, because you knew a fire was only ever going to exist in one of the boxes. It's when those boxes are compromised that things become a problem, stuff like unauthorised knock-throughs and especially the flammable cladding (that was added later) on the outside of the building. It turned all those fireproof boxes into fireproof boxes except on one side, so when that cladding caught fire, it just set fire to all of the boxes.

[–] nialv7@lemmy.world 1 points 2 hours ago* (last edited 2 hours ago)

The 'Stay Put' thing

wait, you have a problem with that point?? as you yourself already pointed out, the "fireproof box" thought was only true with the original design, after the renovation that's simply not the case, saying fire would be contained is just plain wrong. what's even the point of bringing that up. but let's even just ignore that, there is a fire in the building, even if you think the fireproof should hold the fire, i don't get why wouldn't you evacuate the building just in case? what if you are wrong, can you take that risk when the consequence is so many people losing their lives?? and even if you thought initially that staying put was the correct thing for the residents to do, once you realize you don't the fire under control, wouldn't you start the evacuation as soon as possible? why was that policy in place for so long??

i mean i am absolutely not saying the firefighter should take majority of the blame. they did save many people's live that day, and there's just so much wrong with everything else, the housing system, fire regulation, there are too many things I can't list most of them. but like, can't you at least admit they were wrong on this one?