Grenfell Tower is coming down. Relatives of the 72 people killed there say Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner told families and survivors of her decision at a meeting on Wednesday evening.
The group Grenfell Next of Kin, which speaks for relatives of nearly half of those who died, said the demolition will not begin until after the anniversary of the fire in June. The tower is still wrapped in protective sheeting.
“Do we wish the whole tower could stand forever? Yes. Is that an option? Not from a structural point of view,” the group said. Engineers advising the government concluded that the structure would deteriorate over time, and that the building, or any part of it badly damaged, should be taken down with care.
What happened in 2017
The fire broke out on the morning of June 14, 2017, after an electrical fault in a fourth-floor refrigerator. It raced up the building’s flammable cladding and engulfed much of the 23-storey block in North Kensington, London. Seventy-two people died. It ranks among the worst disasters in modern British history.
Last year a public inquiry issued a harsh verdict in a 1,700-page report. It blamed successive governments, the construction industry and the firms that fitted the cladding a year before the fire, and said local fire authorities were ill-prepared for a high-rise blaze. The report called the fire “the culmination of decades of failure by central government and other bodies in positions of responsibility.”
Anger and hopes for a memorial
Not everyone accepted how the decision was made. Grenfell United, another group for those affected, called it “disgraceful and unforgivable” to ignore the bereaved on the future of “our loved ones’ grave site.”
Lancaster West Residents’ Voices, which represents people living on the estate around the tower, wrote on X that it hoped something would remain. “Some sort of infrastructure from the building must stay,” the group said, “(as) a reminder to future generations.”
Joe Powell, the MP for Kensington, said the plan was not made lightly. “Grenfell Tower will always be in our hearts as a community,” he said.
A commission on a future memorial said in its 2023 report that any dismantling should be done “with care and respect.” A final memorial design is expected by spring 2026, and building could start that year.
