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The leader of the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea (RBKC) has apologised for putting “the narrow goal of generating commercial income” above serving the community in relation to a string of property deals in the years leading up to the Grenfell Tower fire.
The council has published an independent review of deals that saw public assets in the deprived north of the borough sold or leased to private schools.
The deals – which affected a library, an adult education college and a community centre incorporating a Citizen’s Advice branch – caused consternation in the community at the time, with the now well known ‘Grenfell Action Group’ blog criticising the council’s actions.
Ahead of the appearance of a number of its witnesses at the Grenfell Tower Inquiry in the coming months, RBKC commissioned analysts Kroll to produce a detailed report on the transactions.
They were:
While the Kroll report did not find any wrongdoing by the council staff involved in the deals, leader Elizabeth Campbell issued an apology to the community.
“It is clear to me that before 2017, the council did not find the right balance between financial benefits and social benefits,” she said. “Too often the council put the narrow goal of generating commercial income above the broader aim of delivering benefits to our wider community.
“The council’s policy wasn’t without reason. Good services need funding, and additional income can help to meet the tough financial challenges which we and many others in local government face.
“However, those financial considerations should never automatically come first. We fell below the bar on consultation, transparency, scrutiny and policy. We cannot say hand on heart that residents were involved every step of the way, or that the council put their interests first and foremost, and for that we apologise.”
An investigation by the Bureau for Investigative Journalism in 2019 found that the council made £129m from property deals in the years leading up to the Grenfell tragedy and had £37m of this in the bank when funding decisions were taken relating to the refurbishment.
The inquiry has already heard evidence that budget restraints were a major factor in driving the refurbishment team to switch from non-combustible zinc panels to the highly combustible but cheaper aluminium composite material.
Witnesses from RBKC will give evidence in module three of the second phase of the inquiry, which begins in April.
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