Misuse of resources has cost many lives

THIS week marked two anniversaries of tragedies — or atrocities if you’d prefer to be more direct — where too many lives were needlessly lost. 

A third such anniversary looms. The most spectacular and the one that should provoke the most far-reaching change was the Grenfell catastrophe just over a month ago. The official death toll has not been finalised — that process may take up to a year — but yesterday London police chief Cressida Dick said she expected the figure to be around 80. The anger in the community devastated by the disaster is such that this figure is discounted as a cover-up. The belief that many more people died is widespread, though evidence to support it has yet to be found.

Those accusations spread yesterday when it was revealed that building safety experts warned in 2014 that the insulation planned for in Grenfell Tower — which was installed and which fuelled the fatal June fire — should be used only with non-combustible cladding. A formal certificate issued by the building inspectors’ organisation states that the insulation chosen was acceptable for use on tall buildings only if used with fibre cement panels, which do not burn. The certificate will deepen concerns over why the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea’s building control team certified the Grenfell work as complying “with the relevant provisions”.