The Tories’ relationship with their donors will be tested if flat dwellers are to benefit
The tragedy of the 2017 Grenfell Tower fire in west London has revealed a housebuilding industry corrupted by a profits-first and anti-regulation ideology.
Property developers and speculators cannot be saddled with all the blame for this. It was a project of successive governments, and notably that led by David Cameron, to remove rules that they saw as making life unnecessarily difficult for construction businesses. The dysfunctional system that led to 72 people losing their lives included failures of housing management and safety culture as well as the inappropriate use of flammable cladding.
