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The leader of the council which owned Grenfell Tower has said it could and should have done more to prevent the tragedy which claimed the lives of 72 residents two years ago.

Councillor Elizabeth Campbell made the heartfelt comments at a full council meeting just days before the Grenfell Inquiry reopens and looks at the council’s role leading up to the disaster.

She said Kensington and Chelsea council will be detailing its failings in building control when the Inquiry into what went so fatally wrong resumes.

Elizabeth Campbell, who took over as leader of Kensington and Chelsea council after the fire said its lawyer would “outline our own failings in respect to building control”.

She said: “This council could have, and should have, done more to stop it happening.”

It comes after Martin Moore-Bick who chairs the Grenfell Inquiry said building regulations at the 24-storey Tower failed after it was covered with flammable cladding as part of the refurbishment which was finished in 2016, just a year before the fire.

Councillor Campbell said: “This is about honesty. It is about being clear and about being truthful.”

Her comments came at the first full council meeting after the publication of the report from Phase 1 of the Grenfell Inquiry. It looked at what happened on the night of the disaster itself.

The second part of the Inquiry starts on Monday (Jan 27). It will also investigate the part played by the council and Kensington and Chelsea Tenant Management Organisation which cared for thousands of council properties across the borough.

Ms Campbell said “it will be a hugely difficult time” for the community, council staff and councillors.

The council did not debate the findings of the Inquiry at its meeting (Jan 22). The meeting started with 72 seconds silence - as has been customary since the disaster.

Ms Campbell said the resumption of the Inquiry will be “most difficult” for the bereaved and survivors who will hear “often slow and painful detail” leading up to the tragedy which claimed the lives of 72 people.

She said the council has brought in measures to prevent such a tragedy ever happening again.

These include a new fire safety team, a fire door replacement programme, a restructure of the building control department and a review of every department. It also reviewed its emergency and contingency planning and response.

“Just as we adopted the recommendations from phase one and started work on them the same day they were announced, we will move quickly and make sure this council leads on issues as they emerge,” said Ms Campbell.

North Kensington resident and campaigner Melanie Wolfe outlined the mental and emotional toll of Grenfell and its aftermath.

“Our children in North Kensington saw their friends burn to death and had to go back to school.

“The response to the fire, I’m very sorry to have to say this it was so bad to be beyond belief, it was absolutely dreadful.”

She added: “We do want the truth, we do absolutely request that everybody does their very best and looks into their souls because what we’re living with is hideous.”

“Please understand the trauma, the heartache and all the lives that have been broken because of this.”

And Ms Campbell told the meeting - which included many people who witnessed the fire - that it had a “profound” impact on the council.

“I fully understand that many changes we have made will be deemed too little and too late. But my view is that we all need to continue learning from the Grenfell tragedy and consider how it will shape what we do for years, and decades to come," she said.

The Leader of the Labour opposition, Pat Mason, said: “We have to make sure that this doesn’t happen again.

“I don’t want to hear any more lesson-learning I want you to make changes.”

He said nothing has really changed in government regulation, with 1,500 buildings with “ Grenfell style cladding”.

“This Inquiry’s going to be punishing,” he added.

He outlined how concerns about safety raised by residents from the Grenfell Action Group were ignored.

And he said: “All of us in local government have failed.

“We need to change things for good.”

He described how residents were not listened to and said they are going to "go through hell" for the next two-and-a- half years whilst the Inquiry and police investigation continues.

“They are already exhausted beyond the meaning of exhaustion,” he said.

“We can’t put anymore families in the country anywhere else in the country through this disaster and a disaster like this can happen anywhere else in the country if we don’t persuade the government to really take our recommendations, to really reform how our buildings are built.

“As a country we have to really change things and not just say we will change.”