Council austerity measures meant inspection corners were cut, Grenfell Inquiry told

By Jim Dunton2020-10-01T05:00:00

Grenfell tower wrapped subtle shutterstock

Building control officer had 130 projects to keep track of and felt forced to make ‘judgments’ about whose work needed most focus

The local authority building control officer responsible for inspecting the refurbishment of Grenfell Tower has said austerity-driven staffing cuts at Kensington and Chelsea council ramped up his workload and stopped him from visiting construction sites as often as he wanted.

John Hoban told the Grenfell Tower Inquiry – probing the background to 2017’s fire in which 72 lives were lost – that he had taken on the work of two other colleagues by the time he was tasked with inspecting work on the ill-fated refurbishment project.

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