FURTHER to the Grenfell Tower fire, Scotland Yard has now carried out an investigation into the disaster and has said there are “reasonable grounds” to suspect the council and the organisation that managed the flats of corporate manslaughter.

I have listened to some of the Kensington and Chelsea council meetings and can understand the anger, disappointment and frustration of the residents when faced with councillors who simply say “we are truly sorry for the deaths of the 80 people.” I am afraid that sorry is not enough.

I heard Jeremy Corbyn state that this devastation was caused by “austerity.” That is absolutely not true - it was because the government ignored the warnings of its own fire and safety committee.

Councillors and MPs should ask themselves if these residents would be inclined to vote for them at another election.

We are now told that at least 60 tower blocks are faced with this problem cladding and residents in those blocks are naturally concerned and frightened.

I believe that the police must include the government in their investigation. They were warned for years by their own committee that there was a problem with the cladding and the government did nothing.

The government should have convened a group of building engineers and fire and safety specialists to produce a specification for the cladding and give guidance to improving internal fire and safety standards within older tower blocks.

Following the fire I believe that a political decision was made to test the outer sheet of the cladding. This was done to show the government was taking urgent action, now with thought it is realised that this testing was insufficient so fire testing is now being carried out on full thickness cladding up to 15 meters high.

This has to be led by qualified engineers, politicians do not have the ability to lead this.

Political parties should be recruiting people with experience that have the ability to investigate and solve problems rather than experts in public peaking.

Brian Tyldesley, Middleham