Grenfell Tower demolition begins amid fears the work will lead to more flashbacks for community

“That is the place I was trapped all night.”

Standing at the base of Grenfell Tower, Antonio Roncalato points up to his former home.

He was fast asleep when the fire started on the night of 14 June 2017, while his son Christopher came home to see the tower burning.

Christopher rang his dad, terrified, and spent hours on the street trying to help him escape the inferno.

“I remember hearing people screaming from inside the building, screaming for help, shining the torches on their phones for attention from the windows,” Christopher says.

He explains that even now, seeing the building brings him back to that night – so he does his best to avoid the area he grew up in.

Today, we can’t see anything of the Roncolatos’ cherished flat.

As has been the case for eight years, the whole building is wrapped in white plastic, shielding the burnt remains from view.

But now, a green crane also stands alongside it; the start of the building’s long-anticipated deconstruction.

This week, work begins to demolish the top floor of the tower. It’s the start of a nearly two-year-long process.

For Antonio, it’s the correct decision. “It’s time now for the tower to come down,” he tells me, “providing it’s done in a respectful way”.

His son Christopher loosely agrees, though he has concerns. As difficult as it can be to look at, the tower’s imposing presence on the west London skyline is a constant reminder to everyone of the 72 lives lost.

“My biggest worry is people will forget, and people who never heard of the tragedy will pass by here and never know,” he says.

He’s not the only person who is worried. Over and over, local people tell us their fears of the mental health impact that will come with seeing the tower painstakingly taken down.

How will the tower be taken down?

The work will take place behind the wrapping, starting at the top of the building and progressing down floor by floor.

It’s thought each floor will take around a month to dismantle.

Everything removed will be loaded onto unmarked lorries and carefully covered before being taken away from the site.

The government is talking to families and survivors about a second site, where materials from the tower could be “respectfully laid to rest”.

The banner with a green heart design which is wrapped around the top of the tower will stay, with workers moving it down the building in stages.

Illuminations will also be used to create a visible presence on the sky.

Samia Badani chairs the Bramley House Residents Association, a set of flats at the base of the tower. She still suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) from the night of the disaster.

“Seeing every floor [coming down] is going to take me back to that night, to the people behind the windows, to people screaming, and to the morning after the fire,” she says.

“So I’m quite worried about having flashbacks again.”

At the SPACE, a support hub she runs, a group of young people have organised themselves to make a call to action over mental health concerns.

Jana, the group’s 21-year-old spokesperson, explains they’re “calling for a national youth led inquiry to assess the mental health needs of children and young people following the deconstruction of the tower”.

She doesn’t believe this has been taken into account, adding that she believes “justice should have been served before” the tower is brought down.

Ibrahim, who’s 16 and lost a schoolfriend in the tragedy, explains why seeing it deconstructed will be so difficult.

“Because it’s just always been there,” he says. “Seeing the tower was just always a reminder and that not being there, it will just feel like something is missing from Latimer Road.”

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Clinical psychologist Dr Sara Northley, from the Grenfell Health and Wellbeing Hub, isn’t surprised by this reaction.

As often happens at difficult times – such as the anniversary of the fire – the hub saw a spike in referrals for mental health support for young people when the deconstruction was announced earlier in the year.

“For some people who are quite frightened of looking at the tower or who want to avoid looking at it, the thought of it coming down might be a relief,” she explains.

“But for many others it’s the resting place of their loved ones, or it’s perhaps the home they lived in for many years and it feels very sad or perhaps upsetting to think of it coming down. And I think the main thing that I hear people say is that they don’t want it to be forgotten.

“So they’re worried that by the tower coming down that somehow it will disappear from the public eye or from the public memory.”

A Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government spokesperson said: “We understand decisions on the tower’s future are deeply personal to the community, especially bereaved families and survivors.

“The decision that Grenfell Tower will be carefully taken down was reached after listening carefully to the community, considering all views heard by the department and expert advice.

“We remain committed to ensuring what happened at Grenfell Tower is remembered and keeping the community’s voice at the heart of our work so that what happened can never happen again.”