London (AFP) - The Grenfell Tower disaster that killed 72 people was the “culmination of decades of failure” caused by incompetence, dishonesty and greed, an inquiry into the UK’s worst peacetime residential fire ruled on Wednesday.

Unveiling his 1,600-page report, inquiry chair Martin Moore-Bick said the deaths were “all avoidable” and slammed the building firms who provided the cladding and insulation materials that allowed the flames to spread so quickly.

The retired judge said residents were “badly failed” by those who should have ensured the building was safe for them to live in.

“Not all of them bear the same degree of responsibility for the eventual disaster but… all contributed to it in one way or another, in most cases through incompetence, but in some cases through dishonesty and greed,” he said.

The fire in the early hours of June 14, 2017 spread rapidly through the 24-storey block in west London due to highly combustible cladding fixed to the exterior.

Starting in a faulty freezer on the fourth floor, the blaze took barely half an hour to climb to the building’s top floor with catastrophic consequences.

- ‘Crooks and killers’ -

Following the publication, survivors called on the government to act urgently.

“The government must now exert control over the sector to prevent further dismantling of public safety, which used to be their main job, not aiding and abetting crooks and killers,” said Grenfell United, which represents some of the survivors and victims.

Stuart Cundy, deputy assistant commissioner of London’s Metropolitan Police, said the force was doing “everything that we can to secure justice for those who died”.

But he said that due to the complexity and scale of the investigation it would take up to another 18 months to finalise their inquiry.

A total of 19 companies and organisations are being investigated for potential criminal offences, along with 58 individuals, he said.

The Crown Prosecution Service said decisions on potential criminal prosecutions were not expected for another two years.

Prime Minister Keir Starmer offered a state apology to survivors and families of those who died, and pledged to prevent a similar tragedy in the future.

“The country failed to discharge its most fundamental duty: to protect you and your loved ones… And I am deeply sorry,” he said in a statement to parliament.

- ‘Stay-put’ -

The London Fire Brigade (LFB) was heavily criticised, with senior officers described as “complacent”.

The service failed to ensure that the danger posed by the increasing use of cladding “was shared with the wider organisation and reflected in training”, the report said.

It did not learn the lessons of a previous fire in 2009 which “should have alerted the LFB to the shortcomings in its ability to fight fires in high-rise buildings”.

Terrified residents who phoned the emergency services were told to remain in their flats and await rescue for nearly two hours after the fire broke out.

Men, women and children – including whole family groups – were left trapped in their own homes and perished. That “stay-put” advice, now considered to have cost lives, has since been revised.

- ‘Systematic dishonesty’ -

The report contains scathing criticism of successive governments and a range of other bodies, including the architects and contractor involved in a refurbishment that led to the cladding being installed.

In particular, the report condemns firms involved in the supply of the rainscreen cladding panels and insulation products used.

Accusing them of “systematic dishonesty”, it said they “engaged in deliberate and sustained strategies to manipulate the testing processes, misrepresent test data and mislead the market”.

Arconic Architectural Products, which sold the rainscreen cladding panels, had been determined to exploit weak regulatory systems in countries including the UK to sell the product, it said.

This was despite the fact that the firm “itself recognised the danger they posed” and knowledge gained from cladding fires in Dubai in 2012 and 2013.

Arconic did not consider withdrawing the product “in favour of the fire-resistant version then available”, it said, adding that it continued to let UK customers buy the unmodified cladding material.

Two others firms named – Celotex and Kingspan which manufactured insulation products – also acted dishonestly, it said.

- Dangerous buildings -

The disaster has left many people living in buildings covered in similar cladding fearful of a similar tragedy and unable to sell.

In 2022, the previous Conservative government announced that developers would be required to contribute more to the cost of the removal, with residents in buildings over 11 metres (36 feet) high not having to pay at all.

But a fire east of London just over a week ago in a building still part covered in cladding illustrated the ongoing risks.

London fire commissioner Andy Roe said there were still around 1,300 buildings in London alone where urgent “remediation” work still needed to be done.