‘It should be tuned into a memorial’: Londoners on grenfell

We asked locals in West London how they feel about Grenfell Tower disappearing from the London skyline.

Transcript

00:00Angela Rayner has defended her handling of a meeting with bereaved families and survivors

00:07of the Grenfell Tower fire last week, after some attendees described the meeting as a

00:12car crash. The Deputy Prime Minister told the meeting on Wednesday that the 24-storey

00:19tower would be gradually dismantled nearly eight years after a fire that killed 72 people.

00:28The decision received mixed reaction from those impacted by the tragedy, following years

00:34of debate over the tower's future. The tower here has served as a painful but powerful

00:39reminder to the importance of fire safety for close to a decade. But what do locals

00:46in West London think about Grenfell disappearing from the London skyline?

00:51My personal opinion is this, when you look at the number of people that are tied into

00:56Grenfell, the impact that it has on London, I think it's an eyesore that's going to stay

01:02there as a permanent reminder. There's no point in having the building there, take the

01:07building down, but turn it into a memorial. We've had the same thing that's happened after

01:129-11. I think the same thing should happen in London for that area because it's had such

01:18a major impact on the youth, my generation, the older generation, everybody was impacted

01:25by it. So as far as I'm concerned, yes, there's no point in maintaining something that'll

01:31fall down, but the site itself means so much to so many people that I think it should be

01:38turned into a memorial.

01:39I don't have a strong opinion on as to whether it should be taken down or not. Maybe that's

01:44something that could be put to the local community as to whether that's something the local community

01:49want to do. I think it's obviously a catastrophe and a very sad thing what has happened. So

01:55I think maybe the local community should decide on whether that should be taken down or whether

02:00something should be re-erected in its place.

02:04Spend the money to take it down so that it's no longer as dangerous and we don't have people

02:07going in there, but also you need to remember the people who fell. That's what I think.

02:12Here is what Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner had to say on the issue.

02:18And therefore making the decision was something that I spoke to the Grenfell community, including

02:22bereaved and survivors. There isn't a consensus. I don't think you ever will find that. It's

02:28devastating what happened. But what I want to try and do is work with the Grenfell community,

02:33the bereaved survivors, to make sure that we do justice to the fact that there is a

02:37sacred place. People lost their lives there and make sure that there is a lasting memorial

02:42on that site. So I felt weighing up all of the different conversations that I had and

02:48the engineering report, that actually the only way forward really was to sensitively

02:55make sure that we start taking away the tower to ground floor level.