On Monday, some of the survivors and bereaved of the Grenfell Tower fire were shown the new venue for the public inquiry into the disaster, which returns in 10 days’ time.

It might have been a moment to win back some trust from a community bruised by battles it has had to fight with officialdom since the biggest loss of life in London since the blitz – one of which was to find a more appropriate location, nearer the area in west London where in happened. The new venue was closer – but for the 560 bereaved, relatives and survivors (BSRs), there were just 59 seats.

To Nabil Choucair, who lost six members of his family in the disaster, the misstep was indicative of a wider problem. Choucair was among those campaigning for months for the inquiry to be moved from rooms conveniently located for lawyers in London’s legal district. Again and again the chairman, Sir Martin Moore-Bick, refused, citing a lack of alternatives.

Finally he relented – but for Choucair, the solution was inadequate. “It seems brilliant for the media and the solicitors, but I don’t think they have got it right for the BSRs,” he said. “It feels really claustrophobic and crowded.”

While 59 seats for BSRs (who have core participant status) will usually be enough, others suggested, many more might want to want to watch testimony from high-profile witnesses such as the leadership of the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea. One mother noticed that there was no room to park a pram. An assurance from the inquiry team that the community would be fully consulted was not followed through, the Grenfell United bereaved and survivors group felt.

“It has been such hard work getting them to listen and to get our views across to change things,” Choucair said.

It was another example of many frustrating battles that the Grenfell community has been obliged to fight. The first was simply to be rehoused. Promises from the then prime minister, Theresa May, to get everyone back into a home were broken repeatedly. Even today, while the large majority of the 201 affected households have been permanently rehoused, eight families remain in temporary accommodation and one is still in a hotel.

The latest row over the appointment of Benita Mehra to help lead the inquiry panel is part of another fight that dates back to 2017, when survivors realised they wanted a panel of experts with knowledge of community relations and social housing to sit alongside the retired judge who said he did not wish to consider “questions of a social, economic and political nature”. A similar approach had been taken by Lord Macpherson in his inquiry into the murder of Stephen Lawrence and his finding of “institutional racism” among the police was the kind of socially penetrating conclusion the Grenfell families are hoping for.

But May rejected the demand for a diverse decision-making panel to sit alongside the head of the public inquiry, until a petition was signed by more than 156,000 people and promoted by the musician Stormzy. Now that one panel member with specialist community housing expertise has been replaced, some feel they are back to square one.

“It’s frustrating,” said Adel Chaoui, who lost four relatives in the fire, two of them children. “It’s almost as if they expect us to give up and say: ‘Good lord, get on with it, fine.’ We are not going to do that. We will fight on and on. We are asking for a fair crack at justice.”

The inquiry is absorbing years of the BSRs’ lives. The first phase took 26 months (18 months behind Moore-Bick’s original goal) and the second phase may not conclude until 2022. Inquests into the deaths of the 72 victims will not take place until the end of the inquiry, which for some means closure on hold.

“You still don’t know exactly what happened,” said Choucair. “It is part of healing.”

Many of the BSRs have also been frustrated at what they see as a slow government response to replacing dangerous cladding, similar to that which fuelled the fire at Grenfell, on hundreds of buildings nationwide.

Grenfell United has been actively campaigning for ministers to take faster action, not least because other cladding fires have devastated buildings in Bolton, Sutton and Barking. The latest official figures, released on Thursday, showed that there were still 315 high-rise residential and publicly owned buildings unlikely to meet building regulations because they are clad in combustible aluminium composite panels.