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London’s Grenfell Tower, where a fire killed 72 people in 2017, will be dismantled because of safety concerns about the damaged tower block, deputy prime minister Angela Rayner is set to announce.
Rayner told a meeting of local residents on Wednesday that the 24-storey structure would be taken down to ground level. The decision follows years of debate about the tower’s future, with some survivors and bereaved families wanting it preserved forever and others preferring a new memorial.
A group called Grenfell Next of Kin said in a statement that Rayner’s “deeply sensitive decision” had followed a thorough engagement process with the deputy prime minister and others.
The tower in North Kensington is currently covered in a protective wrap featuring a green heart and the words “forever in our hearts”. The blaze in 2017 was the most lethal in the UK since world war two.
GNoK said that the tower was being held up by 6,000 props at an estimated cost of £340mn to 2028: “It cannot be propped up indefinitely due to safety concerns”.
It said that continuous discussions and consultations and a long painful debate was only causing more pain and division.
“This is an uncomfortable conversation with uncomfortable truths at its heart,” the group said. “If wishful thinking was an option we would want the tower to remain as a permanent reminder forever.”
The group said the time had come to discuss what should be built in place of the tower.
However, another group called Grenfell United said Rayner had failed to fully explain her reasoning for the decision to take down the tower.
“She refused to confirm how many bereaved and survivors had been spoken to in the recent short four-week consultation. But judging from the room alone — the vast majority of whom were bereaved — no one supported her decision,” it said.
“Ignoring the voices of bereaved on the future of our loved ones’ gravesite is disgraceful and unforgivable.”
In 2023, the Grenfell Tower Memorial Commission called for a garden, monument and space for grieving on the current site of the tower. It acknowledged that the local community was split over whether the tower itself should remain as part of the lasting memorial, referring to “sensitivities on all sides”.
Five teams of architects have so far been shortlisted to design the new memorial with a winning team to be selected this summer.
A public inquiry that reported in September found that the fire started in a fridge in a fourth-floor kitchen, before spreading through the external cladding up the building.
Residents, who were initially told to stay behind fire doors in their rooms, became trapped on higher floors, and many were unconscious or dead because of inhaling poisonous fumes even before the flames reached them.
The report said successive governments failed to hold building product manufacturers to reliable safety standards, or prevent them from actively misleading markets and regulators.
The formal announcement from the government is expected on Friday. The Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government said Rayner’s priority was to meet with and write to the bereaved, the survivors and the immediate community to let them know of her decision about the tower’s future.
“This is a deeply personal matter for all those affected and the deputy prime minister is committed to keeping their voice at the heart of this,” the housing ministry said.
Kimia Zabihyan from GNoK described Wednesday’s meeting as “charged” but said Rayner appeared to have turned up with the “best of intentions”.
