Grenfell Tower Inquiry 2024: A report on a system that never learns

Summary

The publication of the final report of the Grenfell Tower Inquiry on 4th September 2024 constituted a grim milestone in the UK's history of preventable tragedies. This exhaustive 1,700-page document catalogues not just the catastrophic failings that led to the Grenfell Tower fire on 14th June 2017—a fire that took 72 lives—but also sharply criticises systemic, regulatory, and corporate shortcomings that even today place public safety at risk.

But as the dust settles on this latest inquiry, like so many others with promises of reform, one wonders: when do we stop the post-mortems on disasters that never had to happen, and start taking preventive action?

In this blog, Sharon Hartles, Member of the Harm and Evidence Research Collaborative, The Open University, discusses the systemic failures, the corporate misconduct and the oversight and regulation that led to the Grenfell Tower fire.