In the early hours of the morning on Wednesday 14 June 2017, a fire broke out on the fourth floor of Grenfell Tower, a 24-storey high-rise residential block in North Kensington, London. Residents trapped in the tower were advised by the fire services to remain in their flats and wait for help, as the fire was assumed to be containable. However, as the night progressed it became clear this was not the case. The fire spread at high speed, trapping hundreds of residents in their homes as the flames tore through all 24 floors. It raged until the early hours of the following day, killing 72 people and destroying the homes of more than 200 households. The cause of the fire's rapid spread was quickly identified as the cladding that had been installed on the building's exterior a few years earlier by Kensington and Chelsea Council. The decision had been made to apply this particular cladding to Grenfell Tower in order to save around £300,000 in refurbishment costs. It emerged that the cladding, which has also been applied to hundreds of other residential (including my own former family home) and public buildings (including schools), was highly flammable and created cavities in the building, causing a chimney effect. This combination of factors is believed to have enabled the fire to sweep through the building at high speed.

Before the fire, Grenfell residents had warned of the dangers of the cladding, but their concerns were aggressively ignored. Indeed, it was revealed in the fire's aftermath that a local blogger expressing concern had been threatened with legal action by Kensington and Chelsea, who accused them of defamation and harassment (Roberts 2017). What was initially framed as a tragic accident was soon revealed to be the consequence of government (both local and national) negligence. At the time of writing, the Metropolitan Police are considering filing manslaughter, health and safety and fire safety charges against a number of companies and individuals – although Grenfell survivors remain deeply frustrated at the extraordinarily slow pace of these investigations (BBC 2021).

The day after the horrific event, then-Prime Minister Theresa May opened an inquiry into the fire – an inquiry that, at the time of writing, remains ongoing. So far, there have been multiple accusations of mismanagement, lack of investment and attempts to silence Grenfell survivors throughout the inquiry process.