Angela Rayner told bereaved and survivors yesterday that work to demolish the building would start in June

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Angela Rayner said work to demolish the remains of the tower would start in June

A survivor of the Grenfell Tower fire has said the government鈥檚 decision to demolish the remains of the building would put the tragedy 鈥渙ut of sight and out of mind鈥� for those responsible.

Deputy prime minister Angela Rayner told a group of bereaved and survivors yesterday that work to take the 24-storey block down to ground level would start this June to make way for a .

But the decision has been met with anger from some members of the Grenfell Community, who said their views had been ignored.

Emma O鈥機onnor, who lived on the 20th floor of the west London tower, said its upper floors, which have been declared structurally unsafe by engineers, should be demolished but rebuilt as a memorial.

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She told the BBC Radio 4 Today programme: 鈥淭o me, it just seems like if it鈥檚 out of sight, it鈥檚 definitely out of mind for the people that are actually responsible for the lack of respect to human beings.鈥�

The government is expected to make a formal announcement on the decision tomorrow.

The shell of the building is still covered in the protective wrapping which was installed two months after the fire which ripped through the tower in June 2017, killing 72 people in what was the UK鈥檚 deadliest residential fire since the Second World War.

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The tower pictured in the weeks after the fire, before it was covered in a protective wrapping

The final report of a published last September found the combustible cladding on the building which allowed the fire to rapidly spread to upper storeys was the result of 鈥渟ystematic dishonesty鈥� from those who manufactured and marketed the materials.

Inquiry chairman Martin Moore-Bick concluded that the disaster was avoidable and caused 鈥渋n most cases through incompetence but, in some cases, through dishonesty and greed鈥�.

Rayner鈥檚 decision comes three years after plans by former communities secretary Robert Jenrick to demolish the building were shelved by his successor Michael Gove following an outcry from bereaved families.

An international design competition to design a memorial to the victims of the fire was launched last July, with a winner due to be announced this spring.

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The government has set aside a site of just under 3,000 sq m for the memorial, which includes the ground on which the tower block stands in North Kensington and adjacent land on either side.

The Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government has been contacted for comment.

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