Grenfell and Control by Compliance

When Systems Fail — and Fear Takes Over

The fire at Grenfell Tower is often described as a tragedy caused by flammable cladding. That description is not wrong — but it is incomplete.

For letting agents, landlords, and anyone working inside the modern property system, Grenfell is better understood as a systems failure that was later simplified into a materials failure, followed by a regulatory overreaction that exemplifies what can be called control by compliance.

This article does not downplay the horror of Grenfell, nor excuse dangerous construction choices. Instead, it asks a harder question:

What happens when institutions respond to catastrophe by fixing what is easiest to regulate, rather than what is hardest to admit?

1. Grenfell Was Not a Normal Building Fire

Grenfell Tower was not simply a building fitted with the wrong products. It was a building that had drifted out of safe operating condition over many years.

Key factors included:

• Overcrowding well beyond original design assumptions, increasing fire load and ignition probability

• Retrofitted services and heating systems that penetrated compartment walls and floors without adequate reinstatement of fire stopping

• Degraded compartmentation, meaning flats could no longer reliably contain fire and smoke

• Failing fire doors, damaged lobbies, and poorly maintained common parts

• Repeated resident warnings about fire risk that went unheeded

  
  

In short, the building no longer behaved like the building its fire strategy assumed it to be.

2. Why “Stay Put” Became Actively Dangerous

The “stay put” fire safety strategy was not reckless in principle. It relied on a core assumption:

Each flat acts as a sealed fire-resistant box, typically for 60 minutes or more.

That assumption had quietly collapsed at Grenfell.

Once compartmentation was compromised by poor maintenance, service penetrations, and management failure, the logic of “stay put” inverted. What should have been a protective strategy became a trap.

This is a critical point:

The advice did not fail first — the building failed first.

3. Cladding as the Perfect Institutional Villain

When catastrophe strikes, large systems seek causes that are:

• Visible

• Technically definable

• Regulator-friendly

• Politically actionable

  
  

Cladding met all those criteria.

Systemic housing mismanagement did not.

Blaming materials allowed the response to focus on:

• Product bans

• Remediation programmes

• New testing regimes

• Expanding regulatory frameworks

  
  

All of which could be done without confronting deeper questions about social housing governance, maintenance culture, or institutional neglect.

This is not necessarily conspiracy. It is institutional reflex.

4. From Failure to Overcorrection

Before Grenfell, the system failed by being:

• Vague

• Fragmented

• Commercially gamed

• 
  

After Grenfell, it failed in the opposite direction:

• Zero tolerance to uncertainty

• Blanket suspicion of materials

• Elimination of professional judgement

• Defensive compliance driven by liability fear

  
  

The message became clear:

If you exercise judgement and something later goes wrong, you are exposed.

So judgement disappeared.

5. Control by Compliance in Action

This is where Grenfell intersects with a broader pattern across housing regulation.

Control by compliance does not require authoritarian intent. It emerges when:

• Rules multiply faster than understanding

• Guidance becomes de facto law

• Liability flows downward but authority does not

• Professionals are punished for judgement but rewarded for box-ticking

  
  

In this environment, the safest position is always the most conservative one — regardless of proportional risk.

For letting agents, this feels familiar:

• Explain rules you did not write

• Enforce standards you did not design

• Absorb anger from tenants and landlords alike

• Carry reputational risk without policy power

  
  

6. The Opportunity Cost Nobody Wants to Measure

Billions have been spent removing low-risk materials from buildings that:

• Could never replicate Grenfell conditions

• Lack credible vertical fire spread paths

• Have no history of catastrophic façade fires

  
  

Meanwhile:

• Compartmentation audits remain inconsistent

• Fire door inspections are patchy

• Means-of-escape deficiencies persist

  
  

A fundamental safety principle has been violated:

Resources should be spent where they reduce risk the most.

Control by compliance redirects money toward symbolic safety actions, not necessarily effective ones.

7. The Quiet Admission

The gradual shift toward:

• Risk-based assessments

• Height thresholds

• Material differentiation

  
  

Is an implicit acknowledgement that the post-Grenfell response overshot.

But the compliance culture remains intact — risk-averse, liability-driven, and hostile to professional discretion.

Conclusion: The Lesson We Still Haven’t Learned

Grenfell was not merely a cladding failure. It was the end result of:

• Long-term mismanagement

• Erosion of safety-critical systems

• Ignored warnings

• And finally, an external ignition accelerator

  
  

The tragedy demanded reform. What we got instead was simplification.

Cladding was fixed aggressively. Systemic failure was addressed cautiously, if at all.

For letting agents, the danger is clear. A system that governs through fear and compliance eventually stops learning. It stops distinguishing real risk from perceived risk. And it creates new harm in the name of preventing old ones.

The alternative is not deregulation. It is grown-up regulation:

• Risk-based

• Evidence-led

• Proportionate

• And honest about institutional failure

  
  

Until then, Grenfell will continue to shape housing policy — not as a lesson fully learned, but as a justification endlessly reused.

helpline see here - https://lettingsadviceservice.co.uk/

If you found anything of value on this site please 'buy me a coffee' all donations are used towards maintaining this site as a free resource ko-fi.com/le