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https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/article/2024/sep/04/grenfell-report-blames-decades-of-government-failure-and-companies-systematic-dishonesty>
"The Grenfell Tower disaster was the result of “decades of failure” by central
government to stop the spread of combustible cladding combined with the
“systematic dishonesty” of multimillion-dollar companies whose products spread
the fire that killed 72 people, a seven-year public inquiry has found.
In a 1,700-page report that apportions blame for the 2017 tragedy widely, Sir
Martin Moore-Bick, the chair of the inquiry, found that three firms – Arconic,
Kingspan and Celotex – “engaged in deliberate and sustained strategies to …
mislead the market”.
He also found the architects Studio E, the builders Rydon and Harley Facades
and the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea’s building control department
all bore responsibility for the blaze.
Studio E demonstrated “a cavalier attitude to the regulations affecting fire
safety”. Its failure to recognise that the plastic-filled panels on the
high-rise tower were dangerous was not the action of a “reasonably competent
architect” and it “bears a very significant degree of responsibility for the
disaster”, the inquiry found.
The inquiry was highly critical of the tenant management organisation (TMO),
which was appointed by the local authority, the Royal Borough of Kensington and
Chelsea (RBKC), to look after its thousands of homes but, according to the
report, consistently ignored residents’ views. The TMO chief executive, Robert
Black, established a “pattern of concealment … in relation to fire safety
matters” and the TMO “treated the demands of managing fire safety as an
inconvenience” in “a betrayal of its statutory obligations to its tenants”, the
report said.
The final report of the Grenfell Tower public inquiry comes seven years, two
months and 21 days after the fire, which started behind a fridge in a
fourth-floor flat. It raged through the combustible cladding system to the 24th
floor in about 30 minutes. Some victims fell from windows, but most perished
trapped by smoke and flames on the upper floors. Fifteen of the deceased were
disabled.
After 400 days of evidence in an inquiry that has cost the UK taxpayer more
than £200m, Moore-Bick reserved some of his most damning conclusions for
central government."
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
