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**Hugh** · 04-09-2024, 11:56

Grenfell fire report blames ‘unscrupulous’ cladding firms

https://www.thetimes.com/article/655...2dfaece38b945c

Quote:

A culture of “systematic dishonesty” among construction firms and a failure of politicians to act on serious warnings led to Britain’s worst residential fire since the Second World War, the final Grenfell report has found.

Sir Martin Moore-Bick’s 1,694-page report concluded that the June 2017 fire at the west London block, which left 72 dead, was the culmination of “decades of failure”.

He accused the “unscrupulous” building companies that made the combustible cladding and foam insulation wrapped around Grenfell of engaging in deliberate “manipulation” and dishonesty to push their products onto the tower.

They were aided by a government “well aware” of cladding risks before the Grenfell inferno, but which “failed to act on what it knew”.

Instead, dismissive ministers ignored warnings and focused on cutting red tape, meaning that life or death matters were “ignored, delayed or disregarded”…

… Moore-Bick singled out Arconic, Celotex and Kingspan for engaging in “deliberate and sustained strategies to manipulate the testing processes, misrepresent test data and mislead the market”.

From 2005, Arconic had data showing that its Reynobond 55 PE cladding product, when bent into cassette form, as it was on Grenfell Tower, reacted to fire in a “very dangerous way”.

But until the Grenfell blaze, it “deliberately concealed” the true extent of its danger in cassette form, particularly on high-rise buildings, the report said.

It “persisted” in saying the panels did achieve the minimum fire safety standards, exploiting “weak regulatory regimes” including in the UK, and concealed information to get a product certificate.

The Irish building firm Kingspan, which produced 5 per cent of Grenfell’s insulation, “knowingly” misled over its K15 product on high-rise buildings, following a 2005 test.

The test meant K15 could only be used in an exact replica of the full system tested, but Kingspan marketed it for general use on high-rises.

“This was a false claim, as it well knew,” the report said. Tests in 2007 and 2008 on systems incorporating K15 “were disastrous” but Kingspan did not withdraw the product.

Kingspan “cynically exploited” the industry’s lack of detailed knowledge about fire tests, the report said.

In an attempt to break into the lucrative high-rise housing market, Ipswich-based manufacturer Celotex embarked on a “dishonest scheme to mislead its customers and the wider market”, Moore-Bick concluded.

It tested its insulation behind non-combustible cladding, reinforced with additional fire-resisting boards — but did not mention the boards in the test report.

The test had been “manipulated”, Moore-Bick said, with Celotex only later revealing key details about its product “deliberately” tucked away in the small print of its literature.