After the Grenfell tragedy, understandably the conversation has turned to safety in preventing such avoidable devastation occurring again. Tower blocks in particular have come under fire for being unsafe, having few fire escape routes and housing so many people in a dense space. Some of the calls for tower blocks to be pulled down or for no more to be built come from a political revulsion towards tower blocks and what they represent in facets of society.

Critics claim they are eyesores, magnets for crime and terrible to live in. But most people I’ve spoken to in tower blocks enjoy living in their home, and would do so more if repairs and improvements were carried out promptly. This is key: the people calling for tower blocks to be pulled down do not live in them, even though they believe their demand comes from a place of altruism and concern. If tower blocks are properly maintained, with all structural work properly carried out, they are perfectly safe.

Tests being carried out on 600 English tower blocks with cladding Read more

The fact that the building appears to have met all building regulations, yet still been a deathtrap in a fire should worry us: Tim Clark at Construction News reports that fire safety experts state that if Eric Pickles had not repealed section 20 of the London Building Act in 2012, the tower would have been more rigorously assessed due to its height.

Former chief fire officer Ronnie King told the magazine: “Under the London Building Act the outside walls of buildings had to have a one-hour fire resistance.” Yesterday, Camden council announced it was removing cladding from one of their towers after laboratory testing showed the cladding was not fitted by Rydon, the contractor which clad the Grenfell Tower, to the standard expected.

The problem is not tower blocks, but safety and how willing companies are to risk lives to save money: most buildings won’t have similar fires, but any with similar renovations could.

But those calling for the demolition of blocks are notably quiet when asked where tenants will be rehoused.

This week the department for communities and local government released its quarterly statistics: statutory homelessness has risen slightly again, but the big tell is that the number of families stuck in B&Bs for more than six weeks has risen by 36% since this time last year.

It seems clear then that this is a sign that our housing crisis is reaching fever pitch: there are so many families stuck in B&Bs because there is simply nowhere to house them. For councils, keeping people for longer than six weeks is utterly undesirable: even ignoring the human cost, local authorities who do so are fined, and B&Bs are extremely expensive. If there was accommodation available, most local authorities would move families out as soon as possible. Pulling down tower blocks, rather than simply ensuring residents’ safety, would at this point cause further harm. Building new homes takes time, and the current and previous governments have not focused on housebuilding, least of all social housing which has depleted dramatically.

Grenfell Tower: 16 council inspections failed to stop use of flammable cladding Read more

The answer is to fight back against the tower block critics. Previously, they came from a position of class snobbery, that is now overlaid with a veneer of concern over safety. We can make tower blocks perfectly fire safe, and clearly need to urgently build more social housing in areas with high need.

Social housing pays for itself, provides a stable home for families, and will be crucial in relieving the housing crisis. We need to value the lives of people in tower blocks by making their homes safe, not by bulldozing them and evicting tenants. The problem is not tower blocks and architecture: it is capitalism and cost-cutting.

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