Grenfell Fire Report Lays Out Decades of Failures by Government and Building Industry
(Bloomberg) -- The Grenfell Tower fire that killed 72 people in 2017 was a result of a catalogue of failures by government and the construction industry, according to a long-awaited final report from the public inquiry into the tragedy.
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Several warning signs associated with the west London blaze were missed in the years following a separate fire in Knowsley Heights in northern England in 1991, according to the report published Wednesday. Failures by the policymakers, contractors, local council and fire brigade all contributed to the extent of the disaster.
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“The simple truth is that the deaths that occurred were all avoidable and those who lived in the tower were badly failed over a number of years and in a number of different ways by those who were responsible for ensuring the safety of the building and its occupants,” Chairman Martin Moore-Bick said at a press conference following publication of the report.
“They include the government, the tenant management organization, the royal borough of Kensington and Chelsea, those who manufactured and supplied the materials in the refurbishment, those who certified their suitability for use on high rise buildings, the architect, the principal contractor and some of its sub contractors,” he said, also apportioning blame to consultants, the local authority’s building control contractor and the London Fire Brigade.
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The report follows years of testimonies and hundreds of thousands of documents, which laid out a string of failings that shattered lives in a low-income community living in one of London’s wealthiest boroughs.
The government was found to have missed many opportunities to identify the risks posed by the use of combustible cladding panels and insulation. In particular, in 1999 the Environment and Transport Select Committee issued a warning that it should not take a fatal fire before steps were taken to reduce cladding risks.
The report makes 58 recommendations to prevent another disaster, including the introduction of a construction regulator that reports to a single secretary of state, who should be responsible for assessing the conformity of building products. Additionally, a licensing scheme operated by the construction regulator should be introduced for principal contractors looking to undertake the construction of higher-risk buildings.
Prime Minister Keir Starmer apologised to the survivors and the victims’ families, promised to take steps to ban implicated companies from public contracts, to review the recommendations and to respond to them within six months. He also pledged to make sure justice is delivered.
“It is imperative that there is full accountability, including through the criminal justice process, and that this happens as swiftly as possible,” he said in the House of Commons on Wednesday. “Clearly we don’t want to prejudice those criminal proceedings, but I don’t think anyone could read this report and not be absolutely shocked about the description of some of the dishonesty.”
Cladding Fire
In the early hours of June 14, 2017 a fire broke out in the kitchen of Flat 16 of Grenfell Tower, a high-rise residential building in North Kensington, west London. The blaze, which ordinarily should have been contained and extinguished within the confines of the apartment, escaped into the cladding wrapped around the building. Within 20 minutes a vertical column of flame had reached the top of the building.
In initial findings, published by the Grenfell inquiry just over two years later, Moore-Bick said the cladding, instead of resisting the fire, acted as a source of fuel.
Further investigation revealed other violations — from highly flammable insulation to cavity walls without firebreaks — that also contributed to the fire’s spread.
Public outrage at the loss of life swelled when reports emerged that residents’ requests for improved fire safety measures in the tower had been ignored, highlighting inequality in London. Media reports that cladding manufacturer Arconic Inc. was aware that the material used in the panels was a fire hazard before supplying them for the renovation of the 24-story structure further damaged public trust.
Despite knowledge gained from earlier cladding fires in Dubai in 2012 and 2013, Arconic did not consider withdrawing dangerous panels in favor of the fire-resistant version then available, according to the report. Instead, it allowed UK customers to continue buying the product.
Celotex, the company that manufactured Grenfell’s foam insulation, presented its product as suitable and safe for use on Grenfell Tower, despite knowing that was not the case, the findings showed.
The report also highlighted a troubled relationship between the Tenant Management Organisation and the residents of Grenfell Tower. Some occupants regarded the TMO as an “uncaring and bullying overlord that belittled and marginalised them”, failing to take their concerns seriously, according to the report.
The investigation found the TMO’s emergency plan for Grenfell Tower was out of date and incomplete. The Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea was found to have failed to perform its statutory function of ensuring the design of a refurbishment complied with building regulations.
Supervisory Failure
The report also revealed failings by the local authority to adequately oversee the TMO’s performance, with fire safety not subject to any key performance indicator.
In 2009, an independent fire safety consultant had recommended that a fire safety strategy should be prepared, though it had still not been finally approved by the time of the Grenfell Tower fire.
Some 600 high-rise apartment blocks in England were initially identified as having been fitted with similar cladding systems, prompting the need for immediate remediation to make them safe. But the question of who should pay for fixes has lingered for several years and the number of properties identified with unsafe cladding has only grown.
As of the end of June, roughly 50% of the 4,613 residential buildings identified with unsafe cladding have either started or finished remediation works, with only 29% having completed, government data show. One resident-led cladding campaign group called the pace of remediation work “shockingly slow” earlier this year.
After the fire, lenders quietly stopped providing mortgages for such properties, trapping leaseholders in properties they were unable to sell.
In the years since the disaster, successive governments have each grappled with who should pay. With the nation’s tax burden at its highest since the Second World War and the then-ruling Conservative Party facing a steep drop in popularity as the electorate struggled with spiraling inflation and a cost-of-living crisis, there was little appetite for a tax-funded approach.
Instead, they demanded the nation’s homebuilders make contributions to a fund, or face being excluded from the country’s housing market.
Remediation Fund
Early last year, the UK’s largest homebuilders signed a UK government contract committing them to repair unsafe cladding on apartment blocks. The industry is now paying billions of pounds to make their buildings safe, and developers are having to reimburse taxpayers where public money was used to fix buildings.
Some complained that they have been unfairly targeted because the government lacks the authority to force overseas firms to contribute, even those responsible for the unsafe materials.
The Metropolitan Police said they expect their investigation team will need 12 to 18 months to go through the inquiry’s report. Survivors and the victims’ families will only find out then if criminal charges will be made.
--With assistance from Jack Sidders, Alex Morales, Ellen Milligan, Jeremy Hodges and Thomas Hall.
(Updates with comments from Keir Starmer in the eighth and ninth paragraphs.)
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