Dangerously weakened safety regulation, greed, dishonesty, incompetence, arrogance, complacency and buck-passing were just a few of the damning terms at the launch today of the inquiry report into the Grenfell Tower fire of 14 June 2017.
The report concludes a six-year public inquiry into the disastrous fire in North Kensington that cost the lives of 72 people and permanently affected the wellbeing of many more. All the deaths were avoidable, the report states.
The scaffolding-clad tower can be seen from the Notting Hill Carnival route. At 3pm on both the Sunday and the Monday of Carnival, a 72-second silence in memory of the victims was held, as it has been every year since 2017.
Despite public anger at those companies and individuals whose greed and incompetence made a deadly fire almost inevitable, the Crown Prosecution Service says it will be impossible to launch any criminal cases before the end of 2026, if at all. Many local people and safety campaigners believe that powerful vested interests will prevent any prosecutions of company bosses and government decision-makers.
Systematic dishonesty
The report is scathing about the actions of central government, which disastrously weakened safety regulations in order to “cut red tape”; the Royal Borough of Kensington & Chelsea (RBKC), whose Tenant Management Organisation (TMO) ran the block but ignored the concerns of residents; the London Fire Brigade, which is accused of “complacency” and failing to train firefighters effectively; and several architects and engineers, who are characterised as inexperienced, naïve and unwilling to blow the whistle on unsafe or unethical practices.
Particular criticism is aimed at the “systematic dishonesty” of cladding and insulation manufacturers Arconic, Celotex and Kingspan. Organisations such as BBA and BRE, which are meant to oversee construction standards and safety, failed in those duties, with the result that thousands of people are still living in tower blocks fitted with unsafe Grenfell-type cladding.
Inquiry panel member Thouria Istephan found that within the construction industry the “problem of incompetence is widespread”.
Profits before people
In a statement by its leader, Cllr Elizabeth Campbell, RBKC admitted: “We fully accept the findings, which are a withering critique of a system broken from top to bottom. It is crystal clear – profits were put before people, clear warning signs were ignored, and Grenfell was wholly avoidable, with failure at every single level.”
The council’s tenant management organisation (TMO) was “badly run” and ignored residents’ warnings about the tower. After the disaster, RBKC showed a lack of care towards the survivors and their families. It was local voluntary and community organisations that filled the gap by providing rest centres and assistance to displaced and traumatised tenants.
The report accuses the TMO of manipulating the bidding process to ensure its favoured architect, Studio E, got the contract to design the cladding installation, even though it lacked the necessary experience. Moore-Bick notes that everyone involved in the process had an “unacceptably casual approach to contractual relations”.
Manipulating contract awards
Some in the Notting Hill Carnival (NHC) community have long accused RBKC of employing similar tactics to ensure that its favoured bidder, Carnival Village Trust, gained the contract to ‘manage’ the carnival on the council’s behalf in 2018. We wrote in October 2018: “Soca News has heard allegations from two independent and well-placed sources that RBKC had already taken the decision to continue funding NHCL [Notting Hill Carnival Limited] well before the bidding process was started.” The Grenfell Inquiry finding suggest that this pattern was well-established in the borough by the time the NHC bidding process took place.
The 2018 contract for NHC was for three years, after which a further round of tendering was meant to take place, as is usual for contracts involving large amounts of public money. So far as SN is aware, the 2018 contract with CVT has simply been renewed without any attempt to submit the work to further competitive bidding.
