Year
2017Duration
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United KingdomProject achievements
Connected communities
Survivor and victim groups, the built environment sector, professional institutions, the UK government and more have since come together to help prevent a similar tragedy
A tragedy that shone a light on critical building safety failures
On 14 June 2017, the 23-storey Grenfell Tower in west London caught fire, resulting in 72 deaths.
The fire broke out in the kitchen of a fourth floor flat, but it soon spread to the exterior of the building and enveloped all four sides.
The tragedy highlighted fundamental safety failures across the construction industry in England.
After the disaster, an independent review of building regulations and fire safety was commissioned. It was led by Dame Judith Hackitt, an engineer and former chair of the Health and Safety Executive, a UK government body.
Dame Judith’s final report, Building a Safer Future, was published in May 2018. It made 50 recommendations to raise safety standards in the construction industry.
The government accepted these recommendations, which led to the drafting of the Building Safety Bill. In 2022, the bill was enacted, becoming the Building Safety Act.
Did you know …
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The ICE and IStructE co-founded CROSS-UK in 1976 – a confidential system that enables built environment professionals to report structural and fire safety issues.
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Reports can be submitted by anyone working on any structure at any stage of its life. No safety issue is too small to disclose.
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Since 2020, CROSS-UK has also been supported by the Institution of Fire Engineers, an expansion in remit recommended by the Hackitt review.
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In 2025, CROSS-UK became the official voluntary occurrence reporting system by the BSR (a role it will hold until at least 2028).
The Grenfell Tower Inquiry
The UK government also launched an inquiry to investigate the circumstances surrounding the tragedy.
Phase 1 looked at how the fire started and spread, as well as the emergency services’ response. Its findings were published October 2019.
The second and final phase examined the underlying causes of the disaster, with the findings published September 2024.
Many regard these inquiry reports as required reading for senior construction industry professionals, as they provide an insight into the perception the general public has of the construction industry following the Grenfell Tower disaster.
What changes have been introduced?
The Building Safety Act introduced three bodies:
- The Building Safety Regulator (BSR): to enforce the act and oversee the safety, standards, design and management of buildings, particularly higher-risk ones. This includes the ability to prosecute for non-compliance.
- The National Regulator for Construction Products: to ensure that all construction products in the English market are safe to use.
- The New Homes Ombudsman: to allow owners of new-build homes to escalate complaints (i.e. against developers) to the new ombudsman.
The Building Safety Act requires duty holders – those who procure building work and/or are involved in it – must ensure that a building is safe to occupy.
They must make sure that the building, regardless of its form, has been properly designed, built to that design and maintained by competent people.
Other changes put in place to safeguard building users include:
- Introducing legal protections so that building leaseholders are not immediately responsible for paying for historical safety defects, such as replacing cladding
- Requiring higher-risk building owners and managers, known as accountable persons, to listen to residents’ safety concerns about the building, and be responsible for repairing common parts
- Requiring freeholders and developers to contribute to the costs of fixing the defects in their buildings
The main principles of the Building Safety Act apply to all buildings of all heights, but it has tougher requirements for higher-risk buildings (HRBs), such as a three-stage gateway review process.
Under the act, an HRB in England is a minimum of 18m tall or has at least seven storeys and contains at least two residential units or is a care home or hospital.
The ICE’s response to the Grenfell tragedy
Since Grenfell, the ICE has increased its focus on competence, accountability and safety culture across infrastructure.
Immediately after the disaster, the institution set up a review panel to examine safety and professional practice across the industry. This review was chaired by ICE Past President Peter Hansford, and its interim report was published November 2017.
In 2018, the ICE published In Plain Sight: assuring the whole-life safety of infrastructure.
The report made recommendations to reduce the risk of infrastructure failures, such as the ICE identifying and communicating risk-related topics for members to study as part of their continuing professional development (CPD).
In 2022, the ICE introduced a framework to set clearer standards for members on what it expects in terms of CPD.
In 2023, the ICE launched a major consultation with members on the introduction of mandatory CPD topics, which ran from May to March 2024. Three themes were brought in early 2026, including safety and risk management.
In 2025, the Higher Risk Building Competency Register for structural engineers launched. It’s managed by the ICE and the Institution of Structural Engineers (IStructE).
The register aims to assure clients, the BSR and others that the structural engineers listed in it have the legally required skills, knowledge, experience and behaviours to work on HRBs.
The ICE also contributed to the development of a new competence standard for engineering professionals working on HRBs.
And in July 2025, the institution launched its follow-up report to In Plain Sight, titled Building Safeguards.
The new report issued recommendations, including nominating an ICE trustee to lead on the delivery of a safety risk management action plan.
The Safety Risk Advisory Group – made up of infrastructure leaders and subject matter experts – was set up to support the ICE trustee in this role.
