A Tragedy That Changed Everything

On the night of 14 June 2017, a fire broke out in a fourth-floor flat at Grenfell Tower, a 24-storey residential block in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea. The fire spread rapidly up the external cladding of the building — recently refurbished with an Aluminium Composite Material (ACM) cladding system with a polyethylene core — and within a short time had engulfed most of the building. Seventy-two people died. It was the deadliest structural fire in the United Kingdom since the Second World War.

What the Grenfell Tower Inquiry Found

The Grenfell Tower Inquiry, chaired by Sir Martin Moore-Bick, published its Phase 1 report in October 2019 and its Phase 2 report in September 2024. The Inquiry found systemic failures across almost every aspect of building safety:

• The ACM cladding system used in the refurbishment was highly combustible and fundamentally unsafe
• The refurbishment design and procurement process failed to adequately assess fire safety risks
• The building control and certification regime failed to prevent the installation of dangerous cladding
• Regulatory guidance was outdated, misinterpreted and inadequately enforced
• The fire service's stay-put advice delayed evacuation
• The Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, the Tenant Management Organisation, and multiple contractors were found to have failed in their responsibilities

What Has Changed Since Grenfell

The UK government's response to Grenfell has been substantial. The principal changes include:

• The Building Safety Act 2022 — establishing the three-gateway regime, the Building Safety Regulator and new duties for accountable persons
• The Building Safety Regulator — a new regulatory body within the HSE with responsibility for higher-risk buildings
• Cladding remediation — government funding programmes to remediate dangerous cladding from affected residential buildings
• PAS 9980:2022 — providing a consistent methodology for assessing external wall fire risk
• Competence reform — new requirements for the competence of those working on higher-risk buildings across all disciplines
• Updated Approved Document B — strengthened guidance on external wall systems and fire safety design

What Remains to Be Done

Despite significant progress, much remains unresolved. Thousands of residential buildings still await cladding remediation. The pace of building safety case registration and compliance with the Building Safety Act's requirements has been slower than anticipated. The reforms to professional competence in the construction industry are still being implemented.