WHAT’S THE STORY?

TOMORROW sees resumed hearings for Module 3 of the second phase of investigations in the Grenfell Tower Inquiry. It comes more than four years after the catastrophic fire that ripped around and through the London tower block, leaving 72 people dead and 70 injured, with a further 223 people escaping from the blaze.

It was on June 14, 2017, just before 1am, that a fridge-freezer on the fourth floor of Grenfell Tower caught fire. The world watched in horror as the fire spread quickly up through the building, the unsafe cladding on the outer walls acting as a funnel that forced the smoke and flames to rise, engulfing all the floors above the fourth.

There had been plenty of warnings by residents that Grenfell was unsafe, and the Grenfell Action Group had been campaigning for Kensington and Chelsea Tenant Management Organisation to fix the many problems they had complained of.

Phase 2, as it is known by the inquiry itself, has been under way since September 2020, but Covid-19 restrictions had meant no public hearings. That all changes tomorrow.

Though police inquiries are ongoing, no-one has yet been charged with any crime in relation to the fire and the lack of safety provisions, and the Tower is no longer considered an active crime scene. The building is now in the hands of the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG).

WHAT WILL BE EXAMINED IN THE PHASE 2 HEARINGS?

THIS is the real nub of the inquiry, examining the causes of the fire, including how Grenfell Tower came to be in a condition which allowed the fire to spread in the disastrous way that it did. There are more than

200,000 documents to be considered. In sequence, the inquiry is now looking at the primary refurbishment, particularly cladding; the cladding products and certification regime; complaints and communication with residents; the management of Grenfell Tower; the fire risk assessment; and active and passive fire safety measures internal to the building.

The inquiry will look at firefighting before tackling the most eagerly awaited section: the Government and its involvement before and after the fire. The inquiry will take further evidence from expert witnesses, and its final session – expected next year – will be on the aftermath of the disaster.

WHAT DID PHASE 1 CONCLUDE?

PHASE 1 was all about the events on the night and the cause of the fire, how it developed and the response of the emergency services.

Sir Martin Moore-Bick was not everyone’s favourite choice to chair the inquiry, but when it was published in October 2019, it proved a shock to the London Fire Brigade and the fire service generally, while the Government and the building industry reeled at the implications of his recommendations on the removal of cladding from high-rise buildings. In particular, he criticised the “stay put” instruction that goes to all residents of high-rise blocks, and said there were “serious deficiencies in command and control” within the officer group that attended from London Fire Brigade.

Two of his strongest recommendations were that the owner and manager of every high-rise residential building be required by law to provide their local fire and rescue service with information about the design of its external walls together with details of the materials from which they are constructed, and to inform the fire and rescue service of any material changes made to them, and that all fire and rescue services ensure that their personnel – at all levels – understand the risk of fire taking hold in the external walls of high-rise buildings and know how to recognise it .

WHAT ARE THE SURVIVORS SAYING?

THEY continue to press for justice, and want blame apportioned properly. Four years on, there could still be criminal prosecutions, but with each passing month it becomes harder to see who could be charged.

Moore-Bick has stated: “An important element of Phase 2 will be to complete the investigation of the circumstances in which those who died in the fire met their deaths ... in due course there will be an opportunity for the bereaved to draw together the threads of the evidence relating to those who died in order to enable the necessary findings of fact to be made.”

The residents and survivors, known as BSRs, may well doubt that their concerns will be aired and listened to, for at the weekend it was revealed in the press that the Ministry is set to demolish the Tower. Members of the Grenfell United group say they have had “previous assurances the tower poses no risk to the community around it” and queried why they were not consulted. In a statement on Twitter, they wrote: “We struggle to understand why this would be pushed through so quickly. It seems to us that removing Grenfell from the skyline while the inquiry and police investigation still continues to only serve those accused or those who haven’t acted.”

The Phase 2 public hearings are going to be very interesting.