TruePublica Editor: The article below is an excerpt by Liz Smith writing for wsws.org entitled: Residents in Bradford, England: “We are all affected by what has happened at Grenfell.”
It highlights one particular aspect of the continuing situation that
surrounds not just Grenfell Tower but social housing generally in
Britain – that privatisation,
the market driven profit model is somehow the most effective way to
deliver services to the wider public. The consequence of the push by
both Labour and Conservative governments since Thatcher to fully
financialise social housing in Britain are that millions are on waiting
lists with many to eventually end up entering buildings like Grenfell
Tower. Buildings such as these are now known to litter the country. They
are death traps for the many on the one hand and cash generators for
the very few on the other.
Reporters also spoke to workers who lived in the high-rise flats
situated at the bottom of Manchester Road. Built in the late 1960s as
part of a massive expansion of social housing to replace slums, the
flats were initially coveted as the place to live. Following the oil
crisis in 1973 and the subsequent hike in electricity prices, workers
who lived there faced considerable debt. Many had no choice but to stop
using the under-floor heating systems installed, which then caused
widespread damp.
Things have worsened ever since. In 2003, as part of the
privatisation moves of the Blair Labour government, all council-owned
housing was transferred to Incommunities, an arms-length social housing
company which owns and is responsible for tower blocks such as Douglas
and Evans Towers, 15-storeys high, and the Courts, which are all 12
storeys.
