The Grenfell Tower Inquiry has today published its final report, condemning local and national government decisions that led to the fatal fire in north Kensington.
But four miles away, in Camden’s Belsize Park, residents of the Chalcots estate are still awaiting the outcome of their own inquiry.
In fact, they’re still waiting for the second phase of the inquiry – promised by Camden Council in 2017 – to even begin.
The independent investigation was supposed to explore how hundreds of residents were left for years in tinderbox tower blocks, riddled with fire safety issues.
But officials admitted today that after announcing over two years ago that they were about to launch the probe and hire someone to lead it, they then put it on hold again without telling residents.
"The review work was put on hold while we awaited the publication of the Grenfell Public Inquiry report," a spokesperson said.
It was just nine days after the horrifying images of Grenfell Tower engulfed by flames were beamed around the world that Chalcots residents were suddenly evacuated from their homes.
That was because after Grenfell, Camden had launched immediate investigations into all its own tower blocks and sent cladding samples for tests. It was the first council in the country to begin removing flammable cladding from its buildings.
The Chalcots blocks – Blashford, Bray, Burnham, Dorney and Taplow – were among those found to be covered in dangerous material.
But Camden stressed that the configuration was not the same as Grenfell’s. When a fire broke out in Taplow in 2012, it did not spread in the same way the lethal fire at Grenfell Tower did.
However, London Fire Brigade still took the view that the five blocks were unsafe for human habitation.
An inspection uncovered faulty fire doors, inadequate fire stopping between different storeys and electrical risers at risk of combustion, which could spread fires upwards inside of the buildings.
Firefighters told Camden Council that it could either evacuate the buildings voluntarily, or they would serve documents forcibly closing them down.
More than 630 households had to be decanted – Britain’s largest evacuation since World War II.
Across town, Wembley Stadium was gearing up for four Adele concerts, leaving the few remaining north London hotel rooms at a premium.
The ultimate cost of putting up all the displaced residents was £12.5 million.
Camden immediately announced an independent public inquiry into the debacle, split into two phases.
The first investigated the evacuation and concluded in 2018 that the council had pursued the correct course of action.
The second phase was supposed to investigate who was responsible for the litany of fire safety issues and why residents were left in the precarious buildings for almost a decade.
The safety issues were uncovered nine years after the estate underwent a £150 million refurbishment by Partners for Improvement in Camden (PFIC).
So the second phase of the promised inquiry was put on hold while Camden filed a £130 million lawsuit against PFIC.
In 2022, PFIC settled out of court for £19 million. But the Ham&High discovered Camden had spent £6 million in legal fees, meaning it recouped only a tenth of what it was seeking.
Meanwhile, Camden has spent more than £200 million remediating estates, of which Chalcots was the "central" project.
Extensive works there included replacing hundreds of fire doors, fixing exposed gas pipes, installing fire stopping barriers between floors and completely replacing the buildings’ cladding and insulation with a new A1-rated system, which remains ongoing seven years later.
After the £19 million settlement, Camden Council announced that phase two could now begin and it was looking for an independent chairperson.
But more than two years later, the council admitted to the Ham&High that it had then been quietly "put on hold", pending the outcome of the Grenfell inquiry.
We asked whether phase two would now begin, but the council did not directly address that question.
"Now the report has been published, we will be applying its findings to ensure the highest standard of resident safety and, once this has been completed, we will reassess what further steps should be taken with the Chalcots and our fire safety measures across the borough," it said.
If it ever does proceed, it is unclear whether the inquiry can ever really get to the truth.
In 2022, the Ham&High revealed that a whistleblower had warned the council of serious concerns about the blocks in 2008, after working on the PFIC refurbishment.
But his contemporaneous warnings had since been deleted, due to a council policy of only keeping emails for seven years.
The whistleblower is believed to have since died and Camden refused in 2022 to say whether his concerns were ever investigated before they were deleted.
It also refused to say whether, having promised the inquiry in 2017, it had ensured from then onwards that all remaining emails sent to or from current and past officers involved in the Chalcots affair were preserved.
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