Kensington & Chelsea Tenant Management Organisation went against its own lawyers’ advice with a secret pre-appointment meeting at which value engineering options were discussed with future Grenfell Tower refurbishment main contractor Rydon, it has emerged.

David Gibson, KCTMO’s then head of capital investment and a senior client-side figure in the refurbishment – which led to the devastating spread of 2017’s fire and the loss of 72 lives – admitted that an “offline” March 2014 meeting with Rydon had covered topics that broke EU rules, according to the advice.

Yesterday’s Grenfell Tower Inquiry hearing was told that the meeting took place hours before Rydon was formally notified that it was the preferred bidder for the refurbishment project because of its £9.2m bid and its evaluation score in the procurement exercise.

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