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A damning final report into Britain’s worst residential fire since World War II blamed a litany of cost-cutting, dishonest sales practices and lax regulation for the blaze that killed 72 people.
Seven years after flames engulfed Grenfell Tower, a public housing block in West London, killing 72 people, a public inquiry on Wednesday blamed unscrupulous manufacturers, a cost-cutting government and reckless deregulation for the disaster, Britain’s worst residential fire since World War II.
The 1,671-page final report laid out a litany of corner-cutting, dishonest sales practices, incompetence and lax regulation that led to the tower being wrapped in low-cost flammable cladding, which, after it caught fire in the early hours of June 14, 2017, quickly turned the building into an inferno.
Many of the causes laid out in the report were documented in months of testimony before the inquiry, which was called by the prime minister at the time, Theresa May, and chaired over a seven-year period by a retired judge, Martin Moore-Bick.
But the report painted a damning picture of a Conservative-run local council, the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, eager to reduce costs, working with contractors who installed combustible cladding panels, purchased from suppliers who knew that they should never have been used in a high-rise building.
The suppliers “engaged in deliberate and sustained strategies to manipulate the testing processes, misrepresent test data, and mislead the market,” the report said. In the case of the flammable foam insulation installed alongside the panels, it said one of the key regulators, the Building Research Establishment, “was complicit in that strategy.”
Among the companies that came under the harshest criticism was Arconic, an American aluminum maker formerly known as Alcoa. It sold the cladding for Grenfell, the report said, but “deliberately concealed from the market the true extent of the danger” of using it in a high-rise structure.
Arconic has previously acknowledged its role in the tragedy as a supplier of building materials.
The publication of the report is a milestone in the aftermath of the Grenfell tragedy, which has haunted Britain since 2017, when images of the burning building and of the desperate efforts to save its trapped residents appalled the British public. In the years since, Grenfell has become a politically charged symbol of the costs of deregulation and of the persistent social inequality in Britain’s capital.
“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 an uncontrolled way in a matter of hours, despite what were thought to be effective regulations designed to prevent just such an event?” the authors of the report said in setting out their investigation.
“There is no simple answer,” they concluded. But the inquiry found fault with virtually everyone involved in the 2015 project to refurbish Grenfell Tower, a 24-floor public housing block that was originally constructed in 1972, its Brutalist style a striking landmark near some of London’s most upscale neighborhoods.
“The choice of combustible materials for the cladding of Grenfell Tower resulted from a series of errors caused by the incompetence of the organizations and individuals involved in the refurbishment,” the report said.
Relatives of the victims hope the publication of the report will open the door to prosecution of those involved in the refurbishment, as well as the management and upkeep, of the building. But criminal trials are not expected to begin before 2027, a decade after the disaster.
In 2023, about 900 people settled a civil case against Kensington and Chelsea, as well as French and American companies that sold the cladding and insulation. The settlement, worth 150 million pounds, or $196 million, was mediated by David Neuberger, a former president of Britain’s Supreme Court.
On Wednesday, relatives of the victims expressed satisfaction that the report had established a chain of culpability for the disaster. But some said they were still frustrated that people had not yet been brought to justice.
Joe Powell, the Labour member of Parliament for Kensington and Bayswater, said in a statement, “The government and police must now do everything in their power to bring those responsible to justice, using the full force of the law.”
While much of the report focused on suppliers and contractors, it was also critical of local and national governments and regulatory agencies, which it said were well aware of the risks of combustible cladding in high-rise buildings. It said the Department for Communities and Local Government, which has since been reorganized, was dominated by a zeal for deregulation in the years leading up to the fire, disregarding the lessons of a deadly high-rise apartment fire in London in 2009.
“The government’s deregulatory agenda, enthusiastically supported by some junior ministers and the secretary of state, dominated the department’s thinking to such an extent that even matters affecting the safety of life were ignored, delayed or disregarded,” the report said, referring to the housing secretary at the time, Eric Pickles.
The report recommended that the government consolidate the fragmented regulations governing the construction industry under a single regulator.
London’s fire brigade also came in for criticism for not being adequately prepared to respond to a fast-spreading fire in a high-rise residential building. The report said firefighters were overwhelmed by the large number of calls for help, from inside and outside the building.
Grenfell’s tenant management organization was faulted for its antagonistic relationship with those who lived in the tower, some of whom it regarded as “militant troublemakers” when they raised safety concerns.
Many residents regarded the tenant organization as an “uncaring and bullying overlord that belittled and marginalized them, regarded them as a nuisance, or worse, and failed to take their concerns seriously,” the report said.
Still, of all the responsible parties, the inquiry portrayed the contractors and suppliers as the prime culprits.
It said Celotex, which made the plastic foam insulation, “embarked on a dishonest scheme to mislead its customers and the wider market.” Kingspan, an Irish company that supplied a small portion of the insulation, “knowingly created a false market in insulation for use” in high-rise buildings, the report said, by misrepresenting test results to reassure customers that its product was safe in buildings taller than 18 meters, or 59 feet.
The report said the project itself was dogged by cost-cutting, incompetence and a refusal to take responsibility. The landlord pushed the principal contractor, Rydon, to shave costs from its bid. The architecture firm, Studio E, favored using zinc panels, but switched to ones made with cheaper aluminum composite material because they were cheaper, failing to recognize their fire risk.
“Studio E therefore bears a very significant degree of responsibility for the disaster,” the report said.
But it was not alone. The report said all the contractors and designers either disregarded regulations or shifted responsibility for meeting them.
“Everyone involved in the choice of materials to be used in the external wall thought that responsibility for their suitability and safety lay with someone else,” the report concluded.
