Council leader Grace Williams pointed to a £40m building safety programme the council had rolled out since the Grenfell fire, though stated there was ‘much more to do’, reports Marco Marcelline

Waltham Forest Council has affirmed its commitment to “doing everything” it can to improve building safety in the wake of the publication of the Grenfell Public Inquiry’s final report today. 

Reacting to the report, which concluded all 72 deaths from the catastrophic tower block fire were avoidable, council leader Grace Williams said the local authority would “act wherever necessary in response to the recommendations”.

Cllr Williams continued: “We will do all we can, working closely with the government and our residents at every step to ensure everyone is safe in their homes.”

She pointed out action the council had already taken in response to the fire, including “over £40m” in a “comprehensive” building safety programme that had made high-rise blocks “safer”. Cllr Williams however acknowledged that there was “much more to do”. Works already undertaken include the retrofitting of high-rise sprinkler systems and removal of combustible cladding. 

Expressing sympathy with the victims of what is Britain’s worst residential fire since the Blitz, the council leader said: “We will do all we can, working closely with the government and our residents at every step to ensure everyone is safe in their homes.”

Local housing activist Peter O’Kane criticised Cllr Williams’ representation of the council’s efforts to improve the quality of its housing stock in the wake of Grenfell. 

He told the Echo: “The council has certainly spent a lot of money on its housing, but unfortunately it has done so in a way which has been badly thought out. For instance, they are taking off [cladding] insulation on Fred Wigg & John Walsh before they have the money to replace the insulation.”

Stating that tenants in the Leytonstone estate are facing the winter prospects of “freezing” flat conditions, and “dampness and mould” as a result, he said fire safety works had been done in a “hugely wasteful way”. 

Earlier this year the council was slammed by tenants at the estate for “misleading” them on the reasons for removing the insulation. In February, the council wrote to residents saying it would be taken down “following” the results of an inspection by the London Fire Brigade (LFB).

However, the LFB’s fire inspection notice in November 2023 does not order the removal of the insulation. It instead “strongly” recommends the council to consider the presence of combustible facade cladding as part of a risk assessment for the towers.

A further fire risk assessment by the council’s consultants S3 Environmental recommended that cladding should be “replaced” and not simply removed, and that this should be completed in the “long term” and not immediately.

Work to remove the insulation began promptly in mid-March, and its replacement is yet to be confirmed, with the council insisting in a letter to residents that a newly-installed heating system is enough to ward off the cold.

Today’s final Grenfell inquiry report highlighted widespread “systematic dishonesty” in the testing and marketing of construction materials used in Grenfell Tower, particularly from companies like Kingspan, Celotex, and Arconic. 

The public inquiry, chaired by Sir Martin Moore-Bick, also found that coalition and Conservative governments had failed to regulate building safety standards effectively, as well as having “ignored, delayed, or disregarded” concerns. 

Grenfell United, a group that represents the bereaved and survivors, issued a scathing takedown of parties it deemed responsible for the fire.

In a public statement published after the report, they said: “Justice has not been delivered. The inquiry report reveals that whenever there’s a clash between corporate interest and public safety, governments have done everything they can to avoid their responsibilities to keep people safe. The system isn’t broken, it was built this way.

“It speaks to a lack of competence, understanding and a fundamental failure to perform the most basic of duties of care.”

Grenfell United added that the recommendations published today are “basic safety principles that should already exist” but did not because the roles, duties and obligations of government had been “hollowed out by privatisation.”

This “hollowing out” had created “voids” that construction companies like Kingspan, Celotex and Arconic could fill with “substandard and combustible materials”.

They ended their statement saying: “We have an expectation that the Met Police and the CPS ensure that those who are truly responsible are held to account and brought to justice.

“We must never forget that at the heart of this Inquiry report is the fact that 72 people lost their lives.”

Speaking in the House of Commons today, prime minister Keir Starmer responded to the report by apologising to the families of Grenfell victims on behalf of the British state. Stating the disaster “should never have happened”, he said the government would write to all companies found by the inquiry to be part of the failings as a “first step” to stopping them from being awarded government contracts.

Meanwhile, Theresa May, who was prime minister at the time of the fire and who ordered the public inquiry, said “government, national and local, regulators and the corporate industry must all acknowledge their part in the history and series of events that led to this tragedy”. 

In the immediate aftermath of the fire she was criticised for not meeting Grenfell residents when she first visited the disaster, a move she later said she regretted.

Speaking to the BBC, former tower resident Ed Daffarn said the report did not reveal much that survivors did not already know.

He said: “There was no Poirot moment. We knew in the days and weeks standing under the burning carcass of Grenfell that we were the victims of a system that put profit before people and treated people in social housing as sub-human.”

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