Seminar series: Grenfell Tower Inquiry

About the seminars

This series of seminars, hosted by the Bartlett School of Construction and Project Management in association with the School of History, Philosophy and Social Sciences, Bangor University, seeks to accompany the inquiry by discussing the key financial, economic, management and social phenomena in urban housing that led to the disaster in an academic setting.

The seminars will examine the key aspects of the climate and context in which the disaster occurred to try to extrapolate the wider implications and lessons for how urban housing is funded, managed, and supports the social and working lives of urban inhabitants.

The format

Each seminar will consist of 3 chaired panels of papers, author presented to an audience, with comments and general discussion.

The seminars will be held virtually on Friday 9, Friday 16 and Friday 23, October 2020.

How to register

To register and attend please click the relevant registration link in the programme below where you will be taken to an Eventbrite page to sign up.

Programme

Please explore the programme below to find out which seminar(s) you would like to register to attend. 

Panel 1  |  Friday 9 October

Class, race, economic status and housing
Chair: Professor Peter Shapely 
Watch a recording of the event

Time	Session
11.00	Open and Welcome from Peter Shapely
11.10	Prof Miles Glendinning, Edinburgh, A Curate’s Egg – Post-war Mass Housing in London
11.40	Dr Eva Branscome Bartlett, UCL, Before Grenfell: North Kensington’s slums and suburbs
12.00	Dr. James Greenhalgh, Lincoln, Constructing the Unsuitable Tenant: the development of attitudes towards inhabitants of social housing since the 1920s
12.20	Dr Alun Ephraim, Bangor University, From Path Dependency to Tragedy? Grenfell Tower and the historical background to the marginalisation of social tenants in the United Kingdom, 1956-2017
12.40	BREAK for Lunch
13.10	Sharda Rozena (PG) Leicester, Gentrification and the significance of racial and class inequalities in Kensington on the Grenfell Tower Tragedy
13.30	Dr Sam Wetherell, York, A History of high-density council housing and race in Britain
13.50	Discussion and questions chaired by Prof Shapely
14.30	Closing remarks: Adrian Williamson Q.C

Panel 2  |  Friday 16 October

Building regulation and deregulation
Panel chairs: Dr. Judy Stephenson, The Bartlett School of Construction and Project Management, and Sam Stein Q.C. 
Register to attend

Time	Session
11.00	Open and welcome from Dr Stephenson
11.10	Holly Smith, University of Cambridge, The Ronan Point disaster: 50 years of negligence in high-rise council housing policy
11.30	Shane Ewen (Reader), Leeds Beckett University, Before Grenfell: A slow disaster four decades in the making
11.50	Professor Stefan Muthesius - UEA
12.10	BREAK FOR LUNCH
12.40	Comment from Peter Apps – Inside Housing
13.00	Carl Makin, Deconstructing the ‘risk-based’ regulation of social housing
13.20	Dr Judy Stephenson, Bartlett UCL, Managing building contracting in the long run
13.30	Dr Nader Naderpajouh, Dr Rita Zhang, and Prof Jan Hayes, RMIT,  Regulation and Deregulation: Case of the Building Industry in Australia
14.00	Comment from Matt Wrack of the FBU
14.20	Comment from Brian Richardson
14.40	Discussion and Questions
14.55	Closing remarks: Sam Stein Q.C.

Panel 3  |  Friday 23 October

The fundamental problem of co-ordination and procuring building services and contracts 
Panel chairs: Dr Vanessa Davies; Michael Bowsher, QC 
Register to attend

Time	Session
11:00	Open and welcome from Dr Davies
11.10	Introduction: Mr Bowsher
11.20:	Prof. Albert Sanchez-Graells, University of Bristol Law School, Atomised contractualised governance, disincentives and complex public procurement
11.50	Dr. Richard Craven, University of Sheffield, The Grenfell Tower disaster as a case study of decision-making in local government procurement
12.20	BREAK FOR LUNCH
12.50	Dr. Jas Kalra, UCL, Prof. Michael Lewis, University of Bath, Dr. Mehrnoush Sarafan, University of Bath and University of Cambridge, and Dr. Rehema Msulwa, University of Bath, Characterising (and closing?) the accountability-capability gap in complex public procurement
13.20	Discussant: Mr. Duncan Brock, FCIPS, Chartered Institute of Purchasing and Supply
13.30	Discussant: Roberto Caranta, Professor of Administrative Law at the University of Turin
13.40	Discussion chaired by Mr Bowsher
14:00	Closing remarks: Dr Davies

Organisers

Adrian Williamson QC
Sam Stein QC
Dr. Judy Stephenson
Dr. Vanessa Davies
Professor Peter Shapely

Photo credit: Grenfell Tower 2018 by ChiralJon is licensed under CC BY 2.0