Following the fire that ripped through Grenfell Tower in west London on 14 June 2017, FRFI was amongst those who described the disaster in which 72 people were killed as an act of social murder, defining them as victims of a callous system ready to sacrifice human need to the drive for profits. Nearly three years later Sam Stein QC, representing some of the Grenfell families, told the Inquiry into the fire that, ‘in the pursuit of money’, the companies involved in the tower’s lethal 2016 refurbishment had ‘killed those 72 people as sure as if they had taken careful aim with a gun and pulled the trigger’. But with many key witnesses from those companies now granted immunity for any oral evidence they give, and the inquiry itself suspended indefinitely because of the coronavirus crisis, the murderers remain far from facing criminal prosecution.
The decision to grant immunity to witnesses from entities including the architects firm Studio E, the cladding specialists Harley Facades and the housing management organisation KCTMO was greeted with understandable dismay by survivors and bereaved relatives, who described it as a sad day when they were asked to choose between the search for truth and the search for justice. Nevertheless, it has been revelatory to watch witnesses, freed from the fear of incriminating themselves, sing like canaries. Since the start of Phase 2 of the Inquiry in January, evidence has been presented in which Studio E, fire safety consultants Exova Warringtonfire, contractors Rydon, project managers Artelia and the manufacturers of the combustible cladding panels (Arconic) and insulation (Celotex) have all blamed each other for the series of criminally incompetent, negligent, penny-pinching and ultimately fatal decisions that led to the fire (see FRFI 274, ‘Grenfell Inquiry: criminals pass the buck’). At the same time they have revealed their absolute contempt for the lives of the working class people living in the tower.
The architects
In late February, during the questioning of representatives of Studio E, it emerged that:
- the company had no previous experience of work on high-rise residential towers. In some deal between it and the KCTMO, the project was deliberately offered at £99,000 to keep it below the level at which the council would have been forced to put it out to tender. The lead architect on the project, Bruce Sounes, conceded that in any public procurement process, Studio E would ‘almost certainly’ not have won the bid because of its lack of relevant experience.
- Sounes also admitted that he had never bothered to refer to fire safety regulations that applied to tall buildings or find out what constituted ‘materials of limited combustibility’ before drafting the specification for the cladding. These matters were, he told the inquiry, ‘outside his competence’ and in any case they had a fire consultant on the job.
- Studio E put an as-yet-unqualified architect, Neil Crawford, in charge of the day-to-day management of the project.
- Architect Tomas Rek agreed he had no experience of façade systems for residential blocks, but recalled that all the discussions he was involved in were focused on appearance and cost; fire safety was never mentioned. He said Studio E came under huge pressure from the client – KCTMO – to substitute cheaper (and flammable) aluminium composite cladding (ACM) for the original zinc panels. This was supported by the supposed cladding specialists, Harley Facades, as a way of keeping their own costs down. Harley are also accused of replacing an explicitly fire retardant insulation product with a cheaper combustible one – Celotex RS5000. Crawford claimed the product manufacturer had said RS5000 was suitable in buildings above 18m and the fire safety consultants had given a ‘fairly emphatic’ confirmation it could be used.
Essentially Studio E was handed the Grenfell project on the back of its earlier work on the far-better funded £26m state-of-the-art Kensington Aldridge Academy school next door, and it was clear KCTMO wanted it done on the cheap. Studio E described KCTMO’s proposals for the tower as ‘a mess’, saying the project (capped at £9.2m) was being treated as the ‘poor relative’ of its earlier work. They quoted the council’s housing and regeneration manager, Jane Trethewey, describing Grenfell Tower as one of the council’s ‘worst assets’; her only interest in the cladding was to prevent the tower from shaming the shiny new building next door.
The fire consultants
In evidence given by the consultant for Exova Warringtonfire responsible for preparing the fire safety assessment, Catherine Cooney, it emerged that she had never visited the tower in person and had billed just 15 hours for her work on the document. This was despite having been sent barely-legible and out-of-date microfiche floor plans to work from, and never having prepared an assessment for a high-rise residential building before. An email from Cooney to Studio E described KCTMO’s redesign plans for adding residential units around a single staircase as ‘making a crap condition worse’ but suggested these could be ‘massaged’ to get approval, and asked if there were any ‘contacts’ at the council’s building controls department who might be sympathetic. In October 2013 she submitted her report, suggesting that ‘the proposed changes will have no adverse effect on the building in relation to external fire spread’, but added that ‘this will be confirmed by an analysis in a future issue of this report’. No further report was ever asked for or provided.
Instead, in April 2014, Claire Williams of the KCTMO told Sounes of Studio E that she had met a ‘fire engineer liaison chap’ and wanted to get the fire strategy ‘onto their radar’. She asked Sounes to send the Exova fire strategy ‘asap’. Sounes replied to her the next day with a copy of the fire strategy, suggesting she did not show it to the London Fire Brigade. ‘They are likely to support the severe interpretations of the regulations which Exova believe are unnecessary because this is in an existing building’. In other words, both Sounes and the KCTMO knew the Exova assessment was completely unacceptable in terms of fire safety but were prepared to press ahead regardless.
The Inquiry is still due to examine the equally culpable roles played by other companies. These include Arconic and Celotex, the local Kensington and Chelsea Council and its tenants’ management organisation KCTMO, and the contractors Rydon, as well as the failures of local and national government both in their immediate responses to the disaster in June 2017 and relating more widely to regulations on buildings and fire safety. In the midst of the current health crisis, it is not clear when the Inquiry will resume and justice for the survivors and bereaved of the Grenfell Tower fire seems an ever more distant prospect.
What is clear, however, is that what happened on one night, in one working class housing tower, in one city could happen again anywhere in the country, where the same contempt for the lives of working class households has been the norm for decades. The additional £1bn announced in the Chancellor’s Budget speech on 11 March for the removal of unsafe cladding on the hundreds of residential blocks across Britain – as the government ‘grappled’, he said, with the ‘tragic legacy of Grenfell’ — is mainly targeted at leaseholders unable to sell their properties. But overall, around 60,000 people are estimated to be living in blocks wrapped in ACM cladding, including 20,000 in council and housing association accommodation. Additionally, social landlords estimate that non-ACM fire safety problems – including other forms of combustible cladding and faulty refurbishments — will cost more than £10bn to fix. If the disaster at Grenfell is to have any meaningful legacy for the working class, then it must surely be to prompt a movement across the country fighting for safe, decent and affordable housing for all.
