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Lancaster West Estate

1967 establishments in EnglandHouses in the Royal Borough of Kensington and ChelseaHousing associations based in EnglandHousing estates in LondonNorth Kensington
Grenfell Road, W11 geograph.org.uk 419407
Grenfell Road, W11 geograph.org.uk 419407

Lancaster Road (West) Estate is a housing estate in North Kensington, west London. It is in an area known as Notting Dale which experienced V-2 bombing during the Second World War. It was built as municipal housing as part of the slum clearances of the 1960s.The estate was designed in 1963-4 as part of a major Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea redevelopment scheme designed by architects Clifford Wearden and Peter Deakins but was later much modified and reduced in scale and ambition. It is immediately east of Latimer Road tube station. It opened in the mid 1970s, and was composed of one tower block (Grenfell Tower) of 23 stories and 900 other units. In the early hours of 14 June 2017, the Grenfell Tower caught fire, resulting in large loss of life.

Excerpt from the Wikipedia article Lancaster West Estate (License: CC BY-SA 3.0, Authors, Images).

Lancaster West Estate
Whitchurch Road, London North Kensington (Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea)

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N 51.513187 ° E -0.216466 °
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Whitchurch Road
W11 4AS London, North Kensington (Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea)
England, United Kingdom
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Grenfell Road, W11 geograph.org.uk 419407
Grenfell Road, W11 geograph.org.uk 419407
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Grenfell Tower fire
Grenfell Tower fire

On 14 June 2017, a high-rise fire broke out in the 24-storey Grenfell Tower block of flats in North Kensington, West London, at 00:54 BST; 72 people died, including two who later died in hospital. More than 70 others were injured and 223 people escaped. It was the deadliest structural fire in the United Kingdom since the 1988 Piper Alpha oil-platform disaster and the worst UK residential fire since World War II. The fire was started by a malfunctioning fridge-freezer on the fourth floor. It spread rapidly up the building's exterior, bringing fire and smoke to all the residential floors. This was due to the building's cladding and the external insulation, since the air gap between them enabled the stack effect. The fire burned for about 60 hours before finally being extinguished. More than 250 London Fire Brigade firefighters and 70 fire engines from stations across London were involved in efforts to control the fire and rescue residents. More than 100 London Ambulance Service crews on at least 20 ambulances attended the scene, joined by specialist paramedics from the Ambulance Service's Hazardous Area Response Team. The Metropolitan Police and London's Air Ambulance also assisted the rescue effort. The Grenfell Tower Inquiry began on 14 September 2017 to investigate the causes of the fire and other related issues. Findings from the first report of the inquiry were released in October 2019 and addressed the events of the night. It affirmed that the building's exterior did not comply with regulations and was the central reason why the fire spread, and that the fire service were too late in advising residents to evacuate. A second phase to investigate the broader causes began on the third anniversary in 2020. As of June 2020, the fire is currently being investigated by the police, a public inquiry, and coroner's inquests. Among the issues being investigated are the management of the building by the Kensington and Chelsea London Borough Council and Kensington and Chelsea TMO (or KCTMO, which was responsible for the borough's council housing) and the responses of the Fire Brigade, the council and other government agencies. In the aftermath of the fire, the council's leader, deputy leader and chief executive resigned, and the council took direct control of council housing from the KCTMO. The national government commissioned an independent review of building regulations and fire safety, which published a report in May 2018. Across the UK and in some other countries, local governments have investigated other tower blocks to find those that have similar cladding. Efforts to replace the cladding on these buildings are ongoing.

Grenfell Tower
Grenfell Tower

Grenfell Tower is a derelict 24-storey residential tower block in North Kensington in London, England. The tower was completed in 1974 as part of the first phase of the Lancaster West Estate. The tower was named after Grenfell Road, which ran to the south of the building; the road itself was named after Field Marshal Lord Grenfell, a senior British Army officer. Most of the tower was destroyed in a severe fire on 14 June 2017. The building's top 20 storeys consisted of 120 flats, with six per floor – two flats with one bedroom each and four flats with two bedrooms each – with a total of 200 bedrooms. Its first four storeys were non-residential until its most recent refurbishment, from 2015 to 2016, when two of them were converted to residential use, bringing it up to 127 flats and 227 bedrooms; six of the new flats had four bedrooms each and one flat had three bedrooms. It also received new windows and new cladding with thermal insulation during this refurbishment.Prior to a fire, which began in the early hours of 14 June 2017, the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea and central UK government bodies "knew, or ought to have known", that their management of the tower was breaching the rights to life, and to adequate housing, of the tower's residents, according to a later enquiry by the UK Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC). The fire gutted the building and killed 72 people, including a stillbirth. In early 2018, it was announced that, following demolition of the tower, the site will likely become a memorial to those killed in the fire.In 2020, survivors of the fire stated that "nothing has changed" three years later and expressed feelings of being "left behind" and "disgusted" by a lack of progress in making similar buildings safe.

Aftermath of the Grenfell Tower fire
Aftermath of the Grenfell Tower fire

On 14 June 2017, the Grenfell Tower fire broke out in the 24-storey Grenfell Tower block of flats in North Kensington, West London, at 00:54 BST; it caused 72 deaths, including those of two victims who later died in hospital. More than 70 others were injured and 223 people escaped. It was the deadliest structural fire in the United Kingdom since the 1988 Piper Alpha disaster and the worst UK residential fire since the Second World War. The fire is currently being investigated by the police, a public inquiry, and coroner's inquests. Among the issues being investigated are the management of the building by Kensington and Chelsea London Borough Council and Kensington and Chelsea TMO (Tenant Management Organisation, which was responsible for the borough's council housing) and the responses of London Fire Brigade, the council and other government agencies. In the aftermath of the fire, the council's leader, deputy leader and chief executive resigned, and the council took direct control of council housing from the TMO. The national government commissioned an independent review of building regulations and fire safety, which published a report in May 2018. Across the UK and in some other countries, local governments have investigated other tower blocks to find others that have similar cladding. Efforts to replace the cladding on these buildings are ongoing. The Grenfell Tower Inquiry began on 14 September 2017 to investigate the causes of the fire and other related issues. Findings from the first report of the inquiry were released in October 2019 and addressed the events of the night. It affirmed that the exterior did not comply with building regulations and was the central reason why the fire spread, and that the fire service were too late in advising residents to evacuate. A second phase to investigate the broader causes will begin in 2020.