The first phase Grenfell Tower inquiry has heavily criticised the London fire service for its actions during the time the disaster was actually unfolding. There is no doubt that the London Fire Brigade's Commissioner Dany Cotton did seem to present her evidence to the Inquiry in a very factual and seemingly to many a very unsympathetic manner.
However, I believe that those who read the report fully can understand why the decision to tell the residents who contacted the service from within their flats on that terrible night were advised to remain there. That instruction in the eyes of the report sealed the fate of many, but on the night of the disaster, determinations had to be made quickly and decisively and based on how a fire in such a building should behave.
In that, risk assessments and previous experience of high rise residential building fire have always concluded that those in residence are at least risk by remaining within there homes, but in this circumstance that advice turned out to be catastrophically wrong.
Why the fire spread in the way that it did is still to be fully investigated in the second phase of the inquiry. However, it has been concluded in the present report that polyecladding-cored panels and aluminium fixings were at the heart of the disaster and the base of why the fire spread so rapidly and unexpectedly in the way it did.
Many have stated they feel the inquiry should have made the properties of the cladding, it's fixings and the tests that were carried out in regard to its safety for use on such buildings the first and primary aspect of the investigation. It is also being asserted that the in-depth investigation and release of such findings are, in terms of time, imperative as there are many similar residential buildings which still have such compounds of cladding fixed on them.
While the above remains under investigation those that were caught up in this disaster and those who perished on that night can receive no justice, and those who are responsible for bringing about this tragedy cannot be brought to justice.
With all else that is taking place in the news at present perhaps with the release of this report we can take just a minute to think on all who lost their lives that night and on those who still mourn in its aftermath.
