On 14 June 2017 a fire in Grenfell Tower, a 24-storey social housing block in west London, spread rapidly up the building's exterior and killed 72 people. Investigations found that combustible cladding added in a recent refurbishment was the principal reason the fire engulfed the façade. The disaster exposed failures in building regulation, fire safety and the treatment of social tenants whose warnings had gone unheeded. It triggered nationwide surveys and removal of similar cladding from tall buildings.
It forced a reckoning over high-rise fire safety, cladding regulation and social housing, reshaping building codes and the politics of who bears the risks of tall residential towers.
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