Merseyside, Liverpool will now be hosting a Solidarity Silent Walk on the 14th of each Month, beginning in March.

The March will begin at St George’s Hall, St George’s Place, Liverpool L1 1JJ at 6pm each month.

For more details, please visit their Facebook Event Page: Merseyside Justice4Grenfell Solidarity March

If you’re interested in setting up an Silent Walk in your own hometown or City, we’d love to hear from you – [email protected]

#Justice4Grenfell 

The Silent Walk will be starting at a different location and time as of the 14th February 2018.

We will now meet outside of Kensington & Chelsea Town Hall, Hornton St, W8 at the earlier time of 17:30pm. We will follow the route shown on the below map.

Please feel free to join us at any point of the route that you can. We look forward to seeing you – please wrap up warm!

#Justice4Grenfell

On the 1st February, Justice4Grenfell hosted a Public Meeting titled ‘Grenfell: How can we get justice?’

We had some great speakers, such as Emma Dent Coad MP, Brian Richardson (Stand Up To Racism), Eileen Short (Defend Council Housing), Matt Wrack (Fire Brigades Union), Clarrie Mendy (Bereaved family member & Co-founder of Humanity4Grenfell) and Kevin Courtney (National Education Union). There were over 200 people in attendance, and some important points were made from the floor by the community.

The meeting raised some key Grenfell-related issues:

• Inequality
• Housing
• Fire Safety
• Cuts to public services
• The lack of action that’s been taken on previous recommendations after similar avoidable tragedies
• A shocking amount of properties in RBKC are sitting empty, some for years
• The painful ongoing experience and frustrations of the bereaved families, survivors & the wider community
• 98 households are still in emergency accommodation
• No arrests

Look out for dates for future meetings. The fight for justice continues…!

All photos are the copyright of Nicholas Grigorian & J4G  ©

**For Immediate Release**

The Justice4Grenfell Campaign is outraged that survivors of the Grenfell Tower fire who have core participation status in the upcoming Public Inquiry could face the possibility of deportation .

Immediately after the disaster Theresa May said no one should feel scared about coming forward. Then immigration minister Brandon Lewis announced a pitiful one-year amnesty for undocumented migrants living in the tower. Now he has said survivors can apply for permanent residence, but only after a five-year period of regular observation by the state. This constant shifting of the immigration policy has meant that people will not come forward with crucial information for the Public Inquiry and the criminal investigation. Survivors suffering from various kinds of trauma are not accessing trauma and bereavement services.

J4G are also concerned that the Home Office policy for families bereaved by the fire simply does not go far enough. Relatives who were granted visas in the aftermath of the fire, now face the possibility of their visas expiring. Yet in some cases, it has taken over four months for remains to be released and funerals to take place. This could mean that families will have to leave the UK before any substantive hearings at Inquests or the Public Inquiry, and before any completion of the police investigation and criminal proceedings.

Labour MP’s Emma Dent Coad and Dianne Abbott’s letter to Home Secretary Amber Rudd, highlights concerns that the Justice4Grenfell campaign raised in October 2017 when we pointed out that “This piecemeal and underhand policy does not encourage undocumented survivors to confidently come forward, and if survivors do not come forward then justice cannot be served.”

We therefore repeat our call for a full and comprehensive amnesty to allow survivors to take part in the inquiry or for their family members to support them.

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The Grenfell Inquiry Chairman has today written to all core participants responding to the issues that were raised at the Procedural Hearing on 11 and 12 December.

The main outstanding issue is that Sir Martin declined to recommend to PM Theresa May that panel members with equitable decision-making powers should be appointed alongside him.

He stated,

‘I am and must remain completely independent of the government and in my view it would be wrong for me to take the initiative by advising the Prime Minister either to appoint additional members to the panel or not to do so. That must be a matter for her own judgment, free of any unsolicited advice from me. If proposals were made to expand the panel, I should, of course, consider them carefully and with an open mind, but unless and until that occurs, I must refrain from comment.’

J4G continues to call on the Prime Minister to urgently make these appointments as a step to building community trust and confidence in the Inquiry.

Other Key points in the response include:-

• Lawyers representing Grenfell families ‘may’ be allowed to question witnesses directly, the chairman of the public inquiry into the fire.
• Ministers, town hall chiefs and company bosses will be told to identify their Grenfell Tower responsibilities amid worries that the inquiry could be hampered by a “culture of denial”.
• An expert in tenant management will draw up a report and give evidence amid claims that “little heed was paid” by the authorities to warnings by Grenfell residents about the fire risk.
• Exploring assistance such as travel, childcare and refreshment costs for victims’ families and survivors to attend hearings in central London. No local venue in Kensington has been secured for future hearings. This was requested at the procedural hearings.
• Documents will be disclosed in “sensible tranches” but not all the raw information submitted will be made available to core participants, with some papers redacted. The inquiry may receive 270,000 documents.
• Local residents will be ‘consulted’ on setting up a “consultative panel” to promote a “sense of engagement” and build confidence in the inquiry.

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If you’d like to read the Chairman’s full response, please click here: The Chairman’s Response to Submissions made on 11 – 12 December 2017

Justice4Grenfell are calling a demonstration at the Council’s last meeting of the year.

Please join us on the 6th December 2017 at RBKC Town Hall, Hornton St, London W8 7NX at 17:30pm.

It has been almost six months since the atrocity of the Grenfell Tower fire and to date there are over 100 families who are still living in hotels. Many families are sharing one bed between them, whilst children are expected to complete homework or learn to crawl on the same beds they sleep on. Theresa May said the residents would be rehoused in 3 weeks!

In a borough where there are 1652 empty homes, it is a disgrace that the council has not been able to devise a strategy that has enabled the residents of Grenfell Tower to be rehoused more quickly. This has compounded the trauma that the survivors of the fire have been through.

J4G believes that this is a continuation of the council’s disdainful attitude to its social housing residents and a perpetuation of the discriminatory housing policies which have left thousands in temporary accommodation outside of the borough.

Joe D said, “The council keep saying they can’t rehouse us quickly because there’s a shortage of social housing. Well, whose fault is that”

We will not wait in silence for the council to implement their flawed rehousing policy. Six months in hotels is too long!

We demand justice for Grenfell.

RBKC, act now and house the residents in safe and decent homes.

You can find the event page on Facebook by clicking here – Protest: House Grenfell Residents Now!!