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The 2017 Grenfell Tower fire in London which caused 72 deaths is now the subject of Olaide Sadiq’s heartwrenching and enraging documentary, digging at the causes and movingly interviewing survivors and their families, whose testimony is all but unbearable. At the very least, the film will remind you that when politicians smugly announce they wish to make a bonfire of regulations, they should be taken, under police escort if necessary, and made to stand at the foot of the tower. As for the housing secretary at the time of the tower’s refurbishment, the abysmally arrogant Eric Pickles, he was made a life peer in 2018.
With the very considerable help of the housing-issues journalist Peter Apps, the film shows how the horror was created by a perfect storm of incompetence, mendacity, greed, and (that heartsinking phrase) systemic failure. The local council were keen to spruce up its brutalist, concrete (but safe) Grenfell Tower because it was a “poor cousin” and depressing property values. Decorative cladding was just the ticket and the council allowed the installation of the cheapest tiles, made of aluminium composite material which was terrifyingly flammable. A US aluminium firm’s French division sold the council those tiles; in the subsequent inquiry they were accused of suppressing their own research into how dangerous another of their products was.
The coalition government of David Cameron, dominated by red-tape-burners, had ignored the terrible warning of the 2009 Lakanal House fire, also in London, with comparable cladding which killed six. Other cladding-related fires in other countries had resulted in tighter regulations – but not in the UK. And senior officers of the London fire brigade had not been aware of the cladding issue and so failed to update the policy of “stay put”, asking people in tower fires to stay in their flats. Firefighters were courageous, though this was a fatal flaw in their managers’ approach.
Among the government figures, Theresa May, then prime minister, at least has the courage to be interviewed on camera here, though there is something slippery in her statement: “There was regulation there, it just wasn’t up to purpose.” Brian Martin, the civil servant in charge of building regulations at the time, was notoriously dismissive but did have the grace to sound embarrassed at the inquiry. The same can’t be said for Pickles, who high-handedly told the inquiry that he didn’t have all day to answer the questions and talked about the “96” deaths – apparently confusing Grenfell with Hillsborough.
Criminal proceedings and convictions and class-action lawsuits seem as far away as ever. What is there left for us in the meantime? To establish a database of all UK buildings that still have the unsafe cladding, always to make sure we know where the stairwell is whenever we check into a hotel or enter any high-rise – and to support the continuing campaign of the survivors.
