Boris Johnson appointed a key figure to the Grenfell Tower inquiry who has links to the company which made the cladding blamed for accelerating the fatal fire, the Guardian can reveal. Mehra previously ran an organisation that received a £71,000 grant from the charitable arm of Arconic, the US conglomerate that made the aluminium composite cladding panels used on Grenfell. The inquiry has already found that Arconic’s polyethelyne-filled panels were “the principal reason why the flames spread so rapidly up the building”. Her perspective will be affected.”The Arconic Foundation grant was awarded to the Women’s Engineering Society charity, which Mehra chaired from 2015 and 2018. “The Arconic Foundation donated to a specific scheme which provides mentoring for women in engineering and is unrelated to the issues being considered by the inquiry,” they said.

Source: The Guardian January 16, 2020 15:44 UTC