Seventy-two people – 18 of them children – lost their lives in the fire at Grenfell Tower in June 2017. Many more were left traumatised and injured, displaced from their homes and thoughtlessly dumped into inadequate temporary accommodation. The final report of the official public inquiry into the fire, published last week, has one fundamental question at its heart: “How was it possible in 21st-century London for a reinforced concrete building, itself structurally impervious to fire, to be turned into a death trap that would enable fire to sweep through it in an uncontrollable way in a matter of a few hours despite what were thought to be effective regulations designed to prevent just such an event?”
The answer is set out across 1,700 pages: a litany of devastating failure after devastating failure that spans state neglect, corporate greed, regulatory capture and, ultimately, a total lack of concern not just for the residents of Grenfell, but the hundreds of thousands of people who still live in homes rendered potentially lethal by flammable cladding.
