Grenfell Tower Inquiry Report Calls for Improved Building Safety Measures

On 14th June 2017, a high-rise fire broke out in the 24-storey Grenfell Tower block of flats in North Kensington, West London, at 00:54 BST and burned for 60 hours. Seventy people died at the scene and two people died later in hospital, with more than 70 injured and 223 escaping. It was the deadliest structural fire in the United Kingdom since the 1988 Piper Alpha oil-platform disaster and the worst UK residential fire since the Blitz of World War II.

On Wednesday 4th September, the final 1,700-page report of the six-year public inquiry into the fire was published. The Grenfell Tower Inquiry report describe the course of events leading up to the fire, beginning with the regulatory regime and its development in relation to the external walls of high-rise buildings, and including the part played by the Government and other influential bodies in creating the circumstances in which refurbishment of Grenfell Tower took place.

The report concludes that the fire at Grenfell Tower was the “culmination of decades of failure by central government and other bodies in positions of responsibility in the construction industry to look carefully into the danger of incorporating combustible materials into the external walls of high-rise residential buildings and to act on the information available to them.”

Since the Grenfell tragedy, there has been a collective effort to reset the way construction operates, such as the CLC Building Safety Report published last week, which sets out the progress made to date. It covers how the CLC and the wider industry have taken forward work in relation to 5 key areas: leadership and culture, safe design, safe construction, safe products and safe occupation. Similarly, Build UK’s Building Safety Guide continues to be used as a key point of reference across the industry.

However, the Grenfell Tower Inquiry report reinforces the amount of work still to be done, as many authorities now agree. For example, the CLC has issued a statement confirming it, as the representative body for the entire UK construction industry, will now study these recommendations and engage with industry and the Government as to how they can be taken forward through our ongoing work on building safety. Prime Minister Sir Kier Starmer has confirmed the Government will look in detail at the recommendations and respond in full within six months.