The Grenfell Tower fire of 14th June 2017 was the deadliest structural fire in the United Kingdom since the Second World War.
72 people lost their lives in a 24-storey residential block in North Kensington, London, in circumstances that shocked the nation and exposed fundamental failures in the way buildings were designed, managed, and regulated.
In the years since, the tragedy has driven the most significant overhaul of building safety and fire safety regulation in a generation.
This article sets out what changed, why it changed, and what it means for those responsible for buildings today.
What Happened at Grenfell Tower?
In the early hours of 14th June 2017, a fire started in a fourth-floor flat in Grenfell Tower and spread with catastrophic speed up the exterior of the building.
The speed and scale of the fire’s spread was primarily attributed to the aluminium composite material cladding system that had been installed on the building’s exterior during a refurbishment completed in 2016.
The cladding, which included polyethylene core panels, acted as a fuel source and allowed the fire to travel rapidly up and around the building, trapping residents on upper floors.
The building’s stay put advice, a standard evacuation strategy for purpose-built blocks of flats based on the assumption that compartmentation would contain a fire within its flat of origin, proved catastrophically inadequate in circumstances where the fire was spreading externally.
72 people died, and hundreds more were left homeless.
What Did the Investigations Find?
In the immediate aftermath of the fire, a public inquiry was established under the chairmanship of Sir Martin Moore-Bick.
The Grenfell Tower Inquiry has published two phases of findings, with Phase 1 focusing on the events of the night itself and Phase 2 examining the broader systemic failures that led to the tragedy.
Phase 2 found that the fire was the result of decades of failure by central government, local authorities, the construction industry, and the building’s management, and that the deaths were avoidable.
The inquiry found that the cladding system used on Grenfell Tower was highly combustible and should never have been used on a building of that height.
It found that the testing and certification regime for construction products was fundamentally flawed, and that manufacturers had manipulated test data to achieve compliance certificates for products that were not safe.
It found that building control had failed to identify and challenge the use of dangerous materials during the refurbishment.
It found that the building’s management organisation had repeatedly failed to address residents’ concerns about fire safety, and that those concerns had been ignored and dismissed.
And it found that the regulatory framework governing building safety had been allowed to weaken over decades, driven by a deregulatory agenda that prioritised reducing burdens on industry over protecting the safety of residents.
What Changed in the Immediate Aftermath?
In the immediate aftermath of Grenfell, the Government commissioned two parallel workstreams.
Dame Judith Hackitt was appointed to lead an Independent Review of Building Regulations and Fire Safety, which became known as the Hackitt Review and was published in final form in May 2018.
Simultaneously, a national programme of cladding testing was launched, which identified thousands of buildings across England clad with similar combustible materials.
The Government issued advice that buildings with Aluminium Composite Material cladding with an unmodified polyethylene core should have it removed and replaced, triggering a remediation crisis that is still not fully resolved today.
Interim safety measures were introduced for affected buildings, including waking watch patrols, enhanced fire alarm systems, and revised evacuation strategies, while longer term remediation work was planned and funded.
What Legislative Changes Followed?
The legislative response to Grenfell unfolded over several years and produced a series of significant new laws.
The Fire Safety Act 2021 (c.24) was the first major legislative step, clarifying and extending the scope of the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005 (SI 2005/1541) to explicitly include the structure, external walls including cladding, balconies and windows, and flat entrance doors of multi-occupied residential buildings within the duties of the Responsible Person.
This resolved a legal ambiguity that had previously allowed some building owners and managers to argue that external walls and flat entrance doors fell outside the scope of the RRO.
The Fire Safety (England) Regulations 2022 (SI 2022/547), which came into force on 23rd January 2023, introduced specific new obligations for responsible persons in multi-occupied residential buildings.
For buildings over 11 metres in height, these include annual inspections of fire doors in common areas, quarterly checks of fire doors in common areas for buildings over 18 metres, annual checks of flat entrance doors with residents’ cooperation, and the provision of fire safety instructions and information to residents.
For buildings over 18 metres, additional obligations include the installation of wayfinding signage, the provision of information to the fire and rescue service about the building’s layout and firefighting equipment, and more extensive resident engagement requirements.
The Building Safety Act 2022 (c.30) was the centrepiece of the legislative response, representing the most fundamental reform of building safety regulation in England since the introduction of the modern building control system.
It established the Building Safety Regulator within the Health and Safety Executive under Section 3 of the Act, created the new dutyholder regime for higher-risk buildings including the Accountable Person and Principal Accountable Person, introduced the legal requirement for a safety case report and the golden thread of building information, gave residents of higher-risk buildings new statutory rights to information and to raise safety concerns, and introduced a new building control regime for higher-risk buildings with the Building Safety Regulator as the mandatory building control authority.
The Building Safety Act 2022 also introduced significant leaseholder protections through Schedule 8, restricting the ability of landlords to pass remediation costs for historical fire safety defects on to qualifying leaseholders, and placing primary financial responsibility on developers and building owners.
What Changed for the Construction Industry?
Beyond legislation, Grenfell drove significant changes in the way the construction industry approaches building safety.
The competence of those working on higher-risk buildings became a central concern, and a range of industry bodies and professional organisations developed new competence frameworks and assessment schemes for designers, contractors, fire engineers, and building control professionals.
The Construction Industry Council and the Building Safety Regulator have published guidance on the competence requirements for those working on higher-risk buildings, and the Building Safety Act 2022 places a legal duty on dutyholders to ensure that those they appoint are competent.
The testing and certification regime for construction products was subject to significant scrutiny following Grenfell, and the Government launched a review of the system that has led to proposals for a new, more robust framework for product testing, certification, and market surveillance.
What Changed for Fire and Rescue Services?
The Grenfell Tower Inquiry made a series of recommendations directed at fire and rescue services, including recommendations around command and control, training, and the use of evacuation procedures in high-rise buildings.
The National Fire Chiefs Council published revised guidance on the evacuation of high-rise residential buildings, including guidance on the circumstances in which a stay put strategy should be abandoned in favour of simultaneous evacuation.
Fire and rescue services were also given new powers and responsibilities under the Building Safety Act 2022, including a role in the building control regime for higher-risk buildings and new duties around the inspection and enforcement of fire safety in residential buildings.
What Changed for Residents?
One of the most important shifts following Grenfell was a recognition that residents of high-rise buildings must have a genuine voice in decisions about their safety.
The Building Safety Act 2022 introduced statutory rights for residents of higher-risk buildings to receive information about their building’s safety, to participate in decisions about its management, and to raise safety concerns directly with the Building Safety Regulator if those concerns are not being addressed.
The Act also introduced the concept of the Building Safety Charge, giving landlords a mechanism to recover the reasonable costs of building safety compliance from leaseholders, subject to the protections in Schedule 8.
Where Are We Now?
Significant progress has been made since 2017, but the work is far from complete.
Thousands of buildings across England still have unsafe cladding or other fire safety defects that have not yet been remediated.
The Building Safety Regulator is still in the early stages of implementing the new higher-risk buildings regime, and many Accountable Persons are still working to understand and meet their new duties.
The cultural change called for by the Hackitt Review, a genuine shift away from minimum compliance towards a deep and embedded commitment to building safety, is still a work in progress across much of the industry.
But the direction of travel is clear, the legal obligations are in place, and enforcement authorities have demonstrated a willingness to use their powers where those obligations are not met.
The legacy of Grenfell is a fundamentally changed regulatory landscape, one in which the safety of residents in high-rise buildings is treated as the non-negotiable priority that it always should have been.
We Can Help
At ESI: Fire Safety, we help building owners, managing agents, freeholders, responsible persons, and accountable persons navigate the complex fire safety regulatory framework that has emerged in the years since Grenfell.
From fire risk assessments and fire door inspections to advising on compliance with the Building Safety Act 2022 and the Fire Safety (England) Regulations 2022, our team has the knowledge and experience to help you meet your obligations and keep the people in your buildings safe.
