The final report of the official inquiry into London’s Grenfell Tower fire in 2017 reveals that the housing system was rotten to the core, with many failures due to incompetence, dishonesty, and greed. The report attacks the government, the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, architects, building contractors, safety inspectors, and the London Fire Brigade. It criticizes the makers of the building’s cladding for engaging in systematic dishonesty and deliberate strategies to manipulate testing processes, misrepresent test data, and mislead the market.
The report reveals that Arconic’s Reynobond PE 55 aluminium composite material (ACM) panels were the primary cause of the fire spreading, and Celotex’s RS5000 insulation material was made from combustible plastic called polyisocyanurate, which releases toxic gases when it burns. Kingspan’s K15 Kooltherm made up around 5% of Grenfell’s insulation, and the report states that Kingspan knew that K15 was not suitable for use on buildings over 18 meters in height.
Conflicted inspectors had a commercial interest in acquiring and retaining customers that conflicted with their role as guardians of the public interest. The result was that Grenfell Tower was clad in petrochemicals, resulting in all the fire’s victims being dead before the flames reached them. Design & build firms like Studio E, Rydon, and Harley were also more concerned with cost than fire safety.
The government had a persistent indifference to fire safety, particularly the safety of vulnerable people. The London Fire Brigade’s “stay put” strategy for Grenfell Tower was designed to avoid panic while firefighters tackled a blaze in a single flat, but there was no strategy to evacuate the building if they lost control.
In 1991, a serious fire at an 11-storey tower block in Merseyside identified the risk posed by combustible cladding panels and insulation, but no government took action. Critics of the report have bemoaned the length of time it took, but its detailed breakdown of lies, evasion-cutting, and complacency is damning. The Crown Prosecution Service says no charges will be brought before 2026, but the Speaker of the House of Commons advised MPs to be cautious about their statements in case of future criminal proceedings.
