The ‘path to disaster’ that led to Grenfell

There are very few people who emerge from the Grenfell Inquiry’s final report with much credit today. Certainly very few who had a formal responsibility to ensure that those living in Grenfell Tower were safe.

The local community stepped up in the aftermath of the disaster, but even then the institutions set up to ensure victims would be cared for failed them. Institutions including local and central government failed to act on warnings which could have prevented the fire from spreading, meaning the 72 people who lost their lives could still have been with us today. It wasn’t just institutions though, of course: it was construction firms, the architects and the cladding manufacturers, many of whom, Sir Martin Moore-Bick’s damning report finds, took part in a ‘culture of dishonesty’.

In short, politicians and companies either knew they were putting people at risk, or chose not to find out whether they were.