The latest phase of the inquiry into the 2017 Grenfell Tower fire in London is due to be published on Wednesday, September 4, to determine how a blaze that started small spread so quickly and killed 72 people.
The inquiry into the Grenfell Tower disaster, the worst residential fire in Britain since the Second World War, will deliver its highly anticipated findings on Wednesday, September 4.
Seventy-two people died in the fire, which broke out on June 14, 2017, and took less than half an hour to spread throughout the 24-storey tower block, which is mostly home to low-income families, in west London.
The cause? A highly combustible façade cladding. Led by retired judge Martin Moore-Bick, the latest phase of the inquiry aims to understand how a fire, initially small in magnitude, was able to spread so quickly.
Families trapped
Entire families were trapped in the flames. Among them was that of Abdulaziz El-Wahabi, 52, who died with his wife Faouzia, 41, and their three children, the youngest of whom, Mehdi, was eight. The youngest victims were a stillborn child and a six-month-old baby, Leena Belkadi, found with her mother in a stairwell between the 19th and 20th floors.
Residents who called emergency services were told to stay in their apartments and wait for help. The advice, which was widely criticised, has since been revised.
The first phase of the investigation, published in October 2019, concluded that the façade cladding was the “main cause” of the fire’s spread. The second, which began in January 2022, focused on technical issues such as the effectiveness of safety tests for building materials.
In total, they have resulted in more than 300 hearings and the examination of more than 1,600 testimonies. The disaster has left many people living in buildings covered with similar cladding in fear of a repeat tragedy.
A thousand buildings still need to be overhauled
The then UK Conservative government announced in 2022 that developers would be required to contribute more to the cost of removing such cladding.
But the issue is far from over. In late August in Dagenham, east London, more than 80 people had to be evacuated in the middle of the night after being woken by smoke and flames in a building where work to remove “non-compliant” cladding was partly completed.
According to London Fire Commissioner Andy Roe, there are still around 1,300 buildings in the city where urgent “remedial” work needs to be carried out.
Police report not before end of 2025
One of the victims’ groups, Grenfell United, has called for assurances that the inquiry’s recommendations will be implemented. It says that if recommendations made following an inquiry into a 2009 fire at a London apartment block had been implemented, the outcome of the Grenfell fire “could have been very different”. It is calling for a new independent body to be set up to collate the findings of all public inquiries.
Bereaved parents and survivors, for their part, said they hope the inquiry will bring them the “truth we deserve.” For some, it means jail time for those who “made decisions that put profit above people’s safety.”
London police have warned they will not be able to deliver their report until the end of 2025. Prosecutors will then need a year to decide whether to bring criminal charges. Former tower resident Edward Daffarn said such a long delay was unacceptable.
“We are not prepared to wait any longer and this report must be the catalyst for a significant step forward by the Metropolitan Police in bringing to justice those responsible for the deaths of 72 people,” he told the inquiry.
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