Grenfell community gathers for final anniversary before tower demolition begins
It is thought the earliest that demolition will start is September and the process is expected to take around two years.
On Saturday evening, the annual silent walk will take place in west London to mark eight years since the blaze, followed by the reading of the names of the 72 dead, and speeches by campaigners.
What is left of the tower has stood in place in the years since the disaster, with a covering on the building featuring a large green heart accompanied by the words 'forever in our hearts'.
News of the Government's demolition decision earlier this year was met with criticism from some bereaved and survivors of the 2017 fire who expressed their upset and shock, saying they felt they had not had their views considered before the decision was taken.
Deputy Prime Minister and Housing Secretary Angela Rayner later said in an interview that she knew the meeting with those most closely affected was going to be 'really difficult' and that there was 'not a consensus' among everyone over what should happen to the tower.
Views have varied, with her department acknowledging there had been hopes for some of it to remain in place as a memorial to what happened while others had reported this would be 'too painful'.
The Government confirmed in February that engineering advice is that the tower 'is significantly damaged' and will get worse with time.
Separately, the Grenfell Tower Memorial Commission has been consulting on plans for a permanent memorial in the area of the tower, with recommendations including a 'sacred space', designed to be a 'peaceful place for remembering and reflecting'.
It is expected a planning application for a memorial could be submitted in late 2026.
The Government said it will also share further information about plans for a second site where materials from the tower 'which are not used in the memorial, or conserved, will be safely and respectfully laid to rest'.
Grenfell survivor Edward Daffarn said this year's anniversary will be 'all the more poignant by the fact that this is the last time that we will meet with the tower in situ'.
He added that it is difficult to think the tower will be pulled down 'before we have obtained any justice and while there are still people living in buildings with dangerous cladding'.
According to the Government's latest figures, published last month, there were 5,052 residential buildings in England which are 11 metres or taller identified as having unsafe cladding as of the end of April.
Fewer than half – 2,477 buildings or 49% – had either started or completed remediation works, with just a third – 1,652 buildings or 33% – having had remediation works finished.
Labour unveiled its remediation acceleration plan last year, pledging that, by the end of 2029, all buildings more than 59ft (18m) tall with unsafe cladding that are on a Government scheme will have been remediated.
For buildings over 11 metres with unsafe cladding, within the same timeframe those will either have been remediated, have a date for completion or the landlords will be liable for severe penalties, the Government said.
A spokesperson for Grenfell Next of Kin, which represents some of the bereaved, said: 'Eight years have passed, yet it feels just like yesterday when we frantically moved from door to door, hospital to hospital, searching for our loved ones.
'Our parents, children, partners, siblings, grandparents and grandchildren, were lost to a tragedy that was both horrific and unjust. The aftermath has been equally devastating.'
They said they have been 'granted one final chance to visit inside and pay our last respects' ahead of the 'dismantling of the Tower—a site where our loved ones were turned to ashes'.
The story of what happened at Grenfell, and the failures which led to the fire, are explored in a new documentary which will air on Netflix on June 20.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Scottish Sun
a day ago
- Scottish Sun
How you can claim up to £20K a year to help with kids during summer holidays
Do you know the Government will pay £2 for every £8 you spend on childcare HOLIDAY HELP How you can claim up to £20K a year to help with kids during summer holidays HAVING kids is expensive – and the financial pain only gets harder in the summer holidays. Summer clubs cost an average £1,075 for the six-week break, according to Coram's Holiday Childcare Report, so it's vital you claim all available support. Anna Stevenson, benefits specialist at Turn2Us, says: 'There are a lot of schemes to navigate and often people don't know where to start, but there is help there when you know where to look.' Mel Hunter considers what help you can apply for — and it's worth up to £20,247 a year. FREE CHILDCARE PLACES - up to £7,500 a year ALL families in England are entitled to 15 hours' free childcare a week for three and four-year-olds. Working families can also access some free childcare hours from when their children are nine months old. From September, eligible parents will be able to get 30 hours' free childcare a week from nine months until school age — but you need to apply by August 31. Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland have alternative schemes, so it's worth checking what applies for you. HOLIDAY ACTIVITY FUND - £720 THE Holiday Activities and Food (HAF) Programme gives children from lower income families access to holiday activities, including a free meal. It is mainly for primary school children who receive free school meals. Three key benefits that YOU could be missing out on, and one even gives you a free TV Licence However, some councils keep places for other children considered in need. Anna says: 'Schemes like this, which are administered by the local authority, can go under the radar.' TAX-FREE CHILDCARE - up to £4,000 a year THE Government will pay £2 for every £8 you spend on childcare, capped at £2,000 per year per child (or £4,000 for a child with a disability). But around 825,000 of the 1.3million families who are eligible do not claim it. Anna says: 'People don't always realise that they can get help covering the cost of childcare once their kids are out of nursery, when they may be using after-school or holiday clubs.' CHILD BENEFIT - £1,355 a year THIS is paid to anyone with a child under 16, or under 20 if they are still in education. It is worth £1,354.60 per year for a family with one child and £2,251.60 per year for a family with two. It seems a no-brainer, but around £1.6billion in child benefit goes unclaimed each year. With child benefit, there is no cap so you can claim for as many children as you have. The level at which you are entitled to the full amount changed last year. Now you can get it if no one in your household earns more than £60,000, up from £50,000. If you earn between £60,000 and £80,000, you are entitled to some of it. If you earn more than £80,000, you are not entitled to any. It is still worth filling in the claim form, even if you do not want to get payments, to get National Insurance credits which count towards the state pension. UNIVERSAL CREDIT - £5,772 a year UNIVERSAL credit is the main benefit that can be claimed by families on a lower income, but the 1.4million households that don't claim could be missing out on an average of £5,772. You cannot get universal credit if you or a partner you live with have more than £16,000 in savings. But you may still be able to get it if you work. Mandy Jackson, a rights adviser with the charity Working Families, says: 'Anyone with a child should check if they are eligible.' SURE START MATERNITY GRANT - £500 THIS is a one-off payment of £500 to help with the costs of having a newborn in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. You can apply if you have no other children under 16 and you or your partner get certain benefits. If you live in Scotland, you can apply for a Best Start grant, worth up to £767.50. Designed to support families with young kids, it comes in three payments. FREE BREAKFAST CLUBS - up to £450 a year FREE breakfast clubs are being rolled out in primary schools across England. These give kids an extra 30-minute session before school where they get a free breakfast. If you are eligible for these you may be able to get help from your local authority during the summer holidays. Check to find out. My nursery costs are cut by £1,440 3 Sam Kennedy Christian is a coach who helps parents juggle work and childcare Credit: Suppleid MUM-of-two Sam Kennedy Christian is a coach who helps parents juggle work and childcare. Sam, 39, uses the tax-free childcare scheme and finds it very helpful. She explains: 'I started using it when [my daughter] Rose, who's now seven, started at nursery – and over the years it has saved us a fortune.' Currently, it cuts nursery fees for her son James, two, to £480 a month instead of £600 – saving £1,440 a year. The family has been getting 15 hours' free childcare for James each week, but that will rise to 30 hours in September. That will cut their bill by a further £240 a month. Sam, from Herne Bay, Kent, says: 'It's a lot to get your head around, but it's so worth it.' It can also be a godsend for clubs in the school holidays for Rose, Sam adds. With the average cost around £30 a day where Sam lives, she ends up paying £24 herself, with the rest covered by the govern-ment payment. Sam says: 'Saving £6 a day is very helpful. Over the summer, it will save us £60.' PENSIONS ARE TAX TARGET 3 Pensions will become subject to Inheritance Tax from April 6, 2027 Credit: Getty GRIEVING families will soon find the process of sorting out a loved one's finances much harder following a huge change to Inheritance Tax. The government has confirmed that pensions will become subject to Inheritance Tax from April 6, 2027. Currently, money left in your pension after you pass away can be passed on to a loved one without any need for them to pay Inheritance Tax. The Inheritance Tax rate is 40 per cent, and is charged on the estate – the property, possessions and money, of someone who has died – if it is worth more than £325,000. A loophole means many wealthy pensioners are using pensions as a way to pass down most of their money because they are so tax-efficient. The changes mean that this loophole will close – but experts have warned that it will pile pressure on grieving families. Inheritance Tax needs to be paid within six months, and usually before you can apply for probate. But tracking down pensions takes time, delaying the process of applying for probate. Probate is the legal process of dealing with a person's death, and it can take months to get it granted. Former pensions minister Steve Webb said: 'Life is tough enough when you have just lost a loved one without having extra layers of bureaucracy on top. 'It is hard to see how these changes will be good news for bereaved families.' ADELE COOKE STARLING ACCOUNT UPSET 3 Starling bank will no longer let its users open a second current account Credit: Reuters ONLINE bank Starling has shaken up its current accounts, causing a big stir among customers who are desperate for the change to be reversed. The bank, which has more than 4.6million UK customers, will no longer let its users open a second current account. Starling previously let customers open an extra everyday bank account, free of charge. Savers raved about the perk because it was a great way for them to manage their money. But the digital bank has told The Sun it has temporarily stopped allowing customers to open additional accounts while it 'improves our account offering'. It quietly suspended additional accounts last year, and clients have been calling on the bank to bring back the feature. One customer posted to X this week: '@StarlingBank when will additional accounts be back? I had one and would like to enable it again.' Another posted in January asking: 'Can I create a second personal account in @StarlingBank?' One customer said on Reddit: 'I'm sure it used to be a thing when I first started with Starling, but now I get 'you've reached your personal account limit' with one account, and 'you're not currently able to apply for this account' when I go to open a Personal Additional.' Starling said: 'Customers are still able to apply for a joint account, provided both are Starling customers. 'Joint accounts are limited to one per customer.' BLATHNAID CORLESS
Channel 4
3 days ago
- Channel 4
Britain's forgotten suburbs – where Farage is seen as the saviour
Unless you live in this part of the East Midlands, you'd have little reason to go there. Chilwell is six miles from the centre of Nottingham – an emerald green landscape, like much of Nottinghamshire, surrounded by farmers' fields. Peppered with moderately affluent areas and council estates, it's nowhere in particular and yet somehow feels reflective of everywhere in the UK. One part of the estate is known as 'Inham Nook', although some don't like that name, due to negative connotations from the past. It's an area that's had a bad reputation, largely based on other people's assumptions, and often from those who don't have any experience of living there. It's also undeniable some of the area's problems have been hidden in plain sight. Suburbs are often overlooked, with the affluent surrounding areas masking the daily reality for many people. Despite never featuring on any of the 'most deprived lists', there are high rates of deprivation in this area, with some streets in the neighbourhood sitting within the top 10 per cent for child poverty in England. We met Kayleigh Purvis, 33, a cook at one of the local schools. Yet she told us she's using services from a local food hub so that her family doesn't go hungry. She's had periods of sickness off work while dealing with mental health and housing issues. Like so many over the years, she is exhausted from dealing with what feels like the cumulative failures of everyone 'above'. Kayleigh told us: 'The council thinks they're above it… prime ministers, police officers, I know they're all normal people… but everything they do affects us because we're at the bottom. They think 'oh you're sat on your arse all day' and it's not the case, a lot of us do work. They make us feel like the scum of the earth.' So, in Chilwell they help each other, and there are helpers everywhere. Michelle Adkin runs Chelsey's cafe and a food bank, where no referral is needed, at the heart of the estate on the Inham Nook Recreation Ground. Everyone we spoke to said it was a 'godsend' and Michelle told us how work simply wasn't paying for many people: 'You can work two jobs, or have two parents working two full time jobs, and they haven't got two pennies to rub together at the end of a week. They are the ones who need the help, too.' A lot of the people we spoke to on the estate said they would be voting Reform UK at the next General Election, and the recent local elections saw the vote split between Reform UK and Labour in this area. We asked why Nigel Farage had convinced them, given his private education and former employment as a City trader, making his lived experience the polar opposite from theirs. Geraldine Kirchen-Jones, who moved to the area ten years ago, told us: 'At the minute it doesn't feel like Labour are doing anything for us. It feels like they want to exclude and they want to penalise. The difference to me is it feels like [Nigel Farage] is listening and he wants to do something to help rather than reading something that's scripted.' Paul Groves, a retired dental technician, says he intends to vote Reform UK after voting Conservative all his life. He thinks that things have improved for the estate's worst off but is switching his vote anyway: 'Every day on the news you see more and more people coming across the channel. I mean, where's this 'smash the gangs' gone? They're not doing much smashing. That's why everyone wants to come to Britain, because we're a soft touch.' – Paul Groves These voters are coming to this conclusion after years of feeling invisible to all those who hold power, and never seeing their daily reality reflected in the media or by politicians' policies. The current Labour government says it's determined to make change for people in places like Inham Nook, saying it wants people to feel better off and it's working hard to demonstrate the change it wants in communities. But some people living on the estate feel they're dealing with a shopping list that goes back years: the cost of living, crime, poor management of housing, and never ending hurdles or changes within the benefits system. Even for those who are doing well, there's a sense that they're looked down on just because of where they're from, which can feel completely unfair. Because there is good – and a lot of it is coming from the community itself – but there's also frustration and fatigue. Farage claims billions of savings possible under Reform UK One year under Starmer: has Labour delivered change? Has Starmer kept his election promises? Labour's first year explained
Scottish Sun
4 days ago
- Scottish Sun
Ancient English town ranked among ‘worst places to live' unveils £33m revamp as it demolishes ‘dilapidated' station
The development is set to open this summer FIRST GLIMPSE Ancient English town ranked among 'worst places to live' unveils £33m revamp as it demolishes 'dilapidated' station Click to share on X/Twitter (Opens in new window) Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window) A £33 MILLION revamp of an historic town is set to be unveiled next month. The revamp has transformed the town's transport networks. Sign up for Scottish Sun newsletter Sign up 3 The £33 million development would improve bus routes on Fleming Way, Swindon Credit: Swindon Borough Council 3 The road is set to re-open in August, with bus routes starting on August 31 Credit: Swindon Borough Council 3 Proposals included planting trees and bushes to increase biodiversity in the area Credit: Swindon Borough Council It comes after the town was previously named among the worst places to live after it was branded a "gang capital". Development reveal The investment has transformed Fleming Way in Swindon as it is turned into a new bus boulevard. After three years of work, the fencing is set to come down from August 15. Once the new transport hub is up and running, the existing bus station is set to be demolished. Local bus companies will begin their services from Fleming Way from August 31. As well as the new transport hub, the revamp brings a number of improvements to the area. This includes new benches, bike racks and waste bins, in addition to more than 185 trees and 23,000 plants and bushes. Planning proposals A Swindon Borough Council spokesperson said that there would also be new bus shelters to improve wheelchair accessibility. The new shelters will also include wireless charging, digital screens that display up-to-date departure times, and solar panels. A total of 27 new bus stops were planned in the proposal. Our pretty town has become a ghetto plagued by machete-wielding yobs They said: "The new road will also create a better space for bus services around Swindon and the surrounding areas, as well as allow for national and inner-city routes. "New cycle lanes have also been added, connecting the town's two main cycle routes so cyclists can travel through Swindon or to the town centre." In previous planning proposals for the development, the council said it hoped to "help the town centre transition from a past dominated by retail, to a future destination where people live, work, socialise and study." It would make Fleming Way the "main gateway" for the town centre. The development focused primarily on transport in the area, improving connectivity to the train station and creating a safer route throughout the town centre. Improvements to the wider area In addition to the improvements to transportation, the council estimated that it would increase surrounding land value by £34 million. This in turn would bring more investors into the area, bringing new homes, offices, shops and leisure facilities for locals. Funding for the project came in part from the Government, who supplied £25 million. It was based on a proposal that demonstrated that the improvements would increase Swindon's economic productivity by £28.7 million over the first 20 yearws. The space freed up by the demolition of the bus station from the 1960s will be incorporated into the regeneration of a 20-acre site next to Zurich's office building. Proposals also included the removal of the Fleming Way subway to make the road the same level as the town centre shopping area and the parade. Traffic lights have been installed to increase pedestrian safety.
