Grenfell firm set fees to avoid contract going out to tender – inquiry

Inquiry told he had 'no knowledge' of rapid fire spread and did not know panels were combustible

The architect of the Grenfell Tower refurbishment has admitted he did not read building regulations aimed at preventing cladding fires and had no idea that panels used to insulate buildings could be combustible.

Bruce Sounes, the project architect on the council block where 72 people died in June 2017, told the public inquiry into the disaster that he did not know that aluminium panels could melt and spread flames and had no idea cladding had previously caught fire on buildings in the UK and Dubai, including at Lakanal House in Southwark in 2009, where six people died.