Property developers responsible for flats covered in dangerous cladding have donated £2.5 million to the Conservative Party since the Grenfell Tower fire in 2017, shocking analysis published by The Times in 2021 revealed.
The Government is examining the recommendations of the seven-year probe into the Grenfell Tower fire, following its damning conclusion.
The deaths of all 72 people in the 2017 blaze in west London were avoidable and had been preceded by “decades of failure” by government, other authorities and the building industry, inquiry chairman Sir Martin Moore-Bick’s report concluded.
The tower block was covered in combustible products because of the “systematic dishonesty” of firms who made and sold the cladding and insulation, he added, with cladding company Arconic and insulation firms Kingspan and Celotex coming in for particularly heavy criticism.
In 2021, it was revealed by The Times that the Conservatives have received millions in donations from builders that use materials linked to the tragic inferno.
Boris Johnson himself personally received £50,000 from individuals with links to the cladding debacle.
Among the most significant developer donors are the Reuben Brothers, who have an estimated fortune of £16 billion and came second on the Sunday Times Rich List last year. They are co-owners of European Land and Property, which donated £200,000 to the Conservatives at the 2019 election. The company developed the Paddington Walk block of flats in West London, which used the same aluminium composite material (ACM) cladding as was grafted on to the Grenfell Tower.
Delancey, a property company founded and run by Jamie Ritblat, an Old Etonian, donated £100,000 to the Conservatives during the 2019 election.
The company bought the East Village development in the Olympic Park in east London. Prior to the purchase, 11 blocks that housed athletes during the 2012 Games out of 66 contained ACM cladding. Delancey confirmed that the cladding had been removed.
Steve Morgan, Redrow’s founder, has given more than £1.1 million to the Conservatives since the Grenfell fire.
Residents of Redrow’s Celestia complex in Cardiff told the BBC that the offer of loans from the housebuilder to repair a variety of safety defects, including missing fire barriers and timber cladding, had added “insult to injury”.
A spokesman for Redrow said Morgan no longer had any day-to-day role.
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