Category Archives: Grenfell Tower inquiry

‘Really upsetting’: Grenfell Tower edited out of TV advert

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Exclusive: Man whose uncle died in 2017 disaster describes ad for pain relief gel Voltarol as ‘insulting’

Grenfell Tower has been edited out of a TV advert in a move described as “insulting” by a family bereaved by the June 2017 disaster.

Karim Mussilhy, whose uncle Hesham Rahman was among 72 people who died as a result of the fire, noticed the edit while watching the Channel 4 streaming service on Monday when an advert for the pain relief gel Voltarol showed people playing football on the Westway football pitches close to the council block.

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Writer of Grenfell play says people must be jailed for what happened

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Gillian Slovo’s play at National Theatre uses words of survivors of 2017 fire at west London tower block

People must be jailed for what happened at Grenfell Tower, the award-winning author Gillian Slovo has said, as her play about the disaster prepares to open at the National Theatre in London.

Slovo, who gained international recognition with her novel Red Dust, set in South Africa’s post-apartheid truth and reconciliation commission, has used dialogue gleaned verbatim from interviews with 10 of the survivors for the play, which has left actors in tears after preview performances. In an interview with the Guardian she said: “Without jail time, how’s it going to stop anybody else doing this in the future?”

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‘Mental torture’: six years after Grenfell, UK residents still live in fear as cladding deal falters

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A government agreement with developers was meant to solve the fire safety crisis in affected buildings – but the wrangling goes on

In June 2021, Charlotte Meehan received a safety inspection report for her block of flats as part of the nationwide checks after the Grenfell Tower fire. It made for grim reading, warning that the block had been built with combustible cladding and insulation.

Last April, the government announced a “wide-ranging” agreement with developers to fix the crisis of unsafe tall buildings, but Meehan, 34, and her fellow residents in the four-storey block in east London, are among tens of thousands still waiting for their homes to be made safe.

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Grenfell fire inquiry ends with shocking reminder of the human cost

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The final evidence sessions have heard unflinching accounts of how victims died, panicking and desperate in horrific conditions

The public inquiry into the Grenfell Tower disaster is ending as it began: with a shocking reminder of the human cost. It opened in May 2018 with elegies to the 72 victims. Its final evidence sessions have been unflinching accounts of the violence of their final moments.

The hearings sought to satisfy the fact-finding requirements of the coroner but swung the spotlight of an often highly technical inquiry back to the sheer barbarity wrought upon a community that still awaits justice.

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Grenfell Tower legal costs on course to top £250m

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As five-year anniversary approaches, figures reveal public inquiry into the fire has spent £149m so far

Legal bills relating to the Grenfell Tower fire are on course to top a quarter of a billion pounds, according to figures obtained by the Guardian on the eve of the fifth anniversary of the disaster.

The public inquiry into the causes of the fire that killed 72 people in the west London tower block has spent £149m so far with more than £60m going to lawyers working for the core participants, the inquiry revealed on Thursday.

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Grenfell families ‘enraged’ by plan to keep ‘stay put’ policy

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Grenfell United criticises Home Office papers outlining reason for retaining policy against inquiry recommendations

Bereaved relatives of the Grenfell Tower blaze have said they are “enraged” by government plans to keep the controversial “stay put” policy instead of adopting an inquiry recommendation.

Grenfell United has criticised new Home Office papers which outline its reasons for retaining the policy – meaning that residents of most buildings should wait for rescue services rather than leaving in the event of a fire.

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Grenfell inquiry told government had ideological aversion to red tape

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Brandon Lewis is first government minister to give evidence at inquiry in London

Calls to regulate against the potential incompetence of people who check fire risks in buildings before the Grenfell Tower disaster were dismissed by government ministers because of an “ideological” aversion to increasing red tape, the public inquiry has heard.

Two coroners investigating earlier fire fatalities, the London fire brigade commissioner and the government’s own chief fire adviser were among experts who asked ministers to toughen scrutiny of fire risk assessors, according to testimony heard during cross-examination of Brandon Lewis, the first government minister to give evidence.

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Fire safety official admits tests showed cladding danger 15 years before Grenfell

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In evidence to inquiry, Anthony Burd denies there was a cover-up of the results of taxpayer-funded tests

A senior official has admitted the government knew 15 years before the Grenfell Tower disaster that plastic-filled cladding panels – which fuelled the fatal fire – burned “fast and fierce” and he believed they should not be used on tall buildings.

But the results of tests were not published, and on Monday Anthony Burd, the principal fire safety professional and later head of technical policy in the government’s building regulations division from 2000 to 2013, denied there was a cover-up.

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Footage of Grenfell Tower meetings before fire to be shown for first time

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Channel 4’s Grenfell: The Untold Story will include previously unseen recordings of pleas to former MP and landlord executive

Previously unseen footage of Grenfell Tower residents pleading with their MP and landlord to end their mistreatment in the months before the 2017 disaster is to be broadcast for the first time.

Recordings of acrimonious meetings with Victoria Borwick, the then Conservative MP for the area, and Peter Maddison, the council landlord’s senior executive in charge of works at the time, shed fresh light on how the concerns of residents were handled in the run-up to the fire on 14 June 2017.

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Former Grenfell management chief ‘kept board in dark’ over safety issues

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Public inquiry into June 2017 disaster hears that Robert Black failed to mention numerous risks and problems following review

The former boss of Grenfell Tower’s management body repeatedly failed to alert residents and councillors overseeing its work to serious fire safety issues and has admitted to “keeping the board in the dark”.

Robert Black, who was chief executive of the Kensington and Chelsea Tenant Management Organisation (KCTMO) at the time of the fire, did not tell boards at the council and the arm’s-length management body about problems with smoke extractors at Grenfell, a deficiency notice issued by London fire brigade on the tower, or problems with fire doors at another block that suffered a fire.

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Grenfell: councillor was told about cheaper cladding plan before fire

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Rock Feilding-Mellen said he was emailed about potential cladding change but didn’t understand significance

Rock Feilding-Mellen, the Tory councillor in charge of the Grenfell Tower refurbishment, was informed of plans to save money by swapping zinc cladding for aluminium in 2014 but initially told police he only knew about it after the June 2017 fire, a statement released to the public inquiry show.

The switch led to the use of combustible cladding that became the main cause of the fire’s spread. Feilding-Mellen, the cabinet member for housing at the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea in London, said he had no idea about the different properties of the two materials.

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Grenfell Tower landlord ‘blocked staff access to residents’ blog’

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KCTMO censored blog by Grenfell Action Group which warned of a potentially disastrous fire, inquiry hears

Grenfell Tower’s landlord blocked staff computers from accessing a residents’ blog which raised concerns about the building’s refurbishment and warned of a potentially disastrous fire, the inquiry into the 14 June 2017 blaze has heard.

The Kensington and Chelsea Tenant Management Organisation (TMO) considered the Grenfell Action Group blog “scaremongering and potentially frightening to the residents”. It blocked access to it on its servers so staff working on the project could not view posts from around 2013 onwards.

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Grenfell landlord didn’t take ‘risk of another fire seriously’, inquiry told

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Landlord took five years to replace ventilation system after 2010 fire spread smoke across 11 storeys

The landlord of Grenfell Tower took five years to replace a smoke ventilation system that the London fire brigade said had suffered “catastrophic failure” in a fire in 2010 that spread smoke across 11 storeys and injured three people, the inquiry into the disaster has heard.

The Kensington and Chelsea Tenant Management Organisation (KCTMO) was told by the LFB that the system needed a full test after it failed causing injuries to residents, including Sayeda Ahmed who lived in flat 156. She received an admission of liability from the council landlord after she inhaled heavy smoke that had spread from the fire on the sixth-floor landing, the inquiry heard.

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Grenfell cladding makers did not reveal ‘disastrous’ fire test data

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Inquiry hears Arconic failed to share results with certifiers despite being ‘legally obliged’ to do so

The company that made the cladding panels used on Grenfell Tower did not tell certifiers about a “disastrous” failed fire test on one of its products despite being “legally obliged” to do so, the inquiry into the fire has heard.

Claude Schmidt, the president of Arconic’s French arm, denied the test results were “deliberately concealed”, but agreed the omission amounted to a “misleading half truth” during proceedings on Wednesday.

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What has the Grenfell inquiry revealed about building materials?

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Some firms had rigged fire safety tests for potentially dangerous products from as early as 2007

A new regulator that could prosecute companies making dangerous building materials has been announced by the government, prompted by evidence given at the Grenfell Tower inquiry. Here we look at some of the key issues that were raised by the hearing …

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‘Step up’ and face Grenfell inquiry, minister tells cladding firm bosses

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Stephen Greenhalgh said executives should not ‘hide behind’ rarely used French law

The UK government has demanded that executives who supplied combustible cladding to Grenfell Tower “step up to the plate” after their refusal to give evidence to the public inquiry into the disaster provoked anger among the bereaved and survivors.

On Sunday, Stephen Greenhalgh, the building safety minister, escalated a legal and diplomatic dispute over the position taken by three current and former executives at the French division of the US company Arconic. He told them to stop hiding behind an arcane French law.

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Director at Grenfell Tower TMO describes how fatal cladding saved £800,000

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Peter Maddison challenged at the inquiry over his ‘candour’ in relation to cost-cutting

A director at the landlord of Grenfell Tower has apologised for the “devastating” fire after he described his role overseeing hundreds of thousands of pounds in cost savings relating to combustible cladding installed on the council block.

Peter Maddison, director of assets and regeneration at the Kensington and Chelsea tenants management organisation (TMO), was close to tears at the end of his testimony to the public inquiry into the tragedy when he said sorry.

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Grenfell: inquiry hears council at heart of cost-cutting decisions

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RBKC used ‘decisive influence’ to remove original contractor over budget concerns

The Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea (RBKC) used “decisive influence” to remove the original contractor on Grenfell Tower despite its claims to have delegated responsibility for the works, the public inquiry into the disaster has heard.

In evidence that places the Conservative-controlled council at the heart of a key decision in the run up to the June 2017 fire, the inquiry was told that Laura Johnson, RBKC’s director of housing, lost patience with Leadbitter when it said the project was going to cost £1.2m more than the budget.

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Grenfell families want inquiry to look at role of ‘race and class’ in tragedy

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Campaigners accuse Kensington council of ‘contemptuous disregard’ in decisions that led up to the fire

The Grenfell Tower fire inquiry must include a separate investigation into how “race and class” contributed to the tragedy, according to a group supporting more than a third of the deceased.

The organisation, which represents 28 of the 72 individuals who died in the fire, submitted a statement on 21 July to the inquiry chairman, judge Sir Martin Moore-Bick, to request that an extra module be added to the inquiry to examine if the cost-cutting measures that helped spread the fire would have been sanctioned “if the tower block was in an affluent part of the city for an affluent white population”. Currently there are eight modules, each covering a separate theme, in phase 2 of the inquiry which is examining why the fire happened.

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Grenfell project manager denies saying cladding ‘would not burn’

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Simon Lawrence tells inquiry he offered no such assurances about cladding material

The project manager on the Grenfell Tower refurbishment has denied assuring the block’s landlord its new cladding panels “would not burn at all”.

The public inquiry into the disaster that killed 72 people was shown a witness statement from David Gibson, head of capital investment at the Kensington and Chelsea Tenant Management Organisation, that claimed Simon Lawrence of Rydon said the plastic-filled panels were “inert”. In fact they were highly combustible and the inquiry has already deemed they were the primary cause of the fire’s spread.

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