Almost six years on from the Grenfell Tower disaster, and its presence still looms large over not just the UK housing sector, but the nation as a whole. Many still ask the question, ‘how could something like this happen in one of the most affluent boroughs in the country?’. The questions will remain so long as change continues to move at a glacial pace.

For some, the injustice of what happened on that fateful night is still ongoing. Learning to forget isn’t a luxury they can afford, whether they want to or not. Danielle Aumord is a resident of the North Kensington community at the heart of the issue of Grenfell Tower. She is also a journalist who had specialised in housing for years before the fire demanded her attention. She now works closely with the survivors and bereaved of Grenfell Tower.

She said: “Some of my neighbours moved from my building to Grenfell about a year before the fire, and they all died. So, I suppose that when Grenfell happened, a lot of people knew me as a resident and not just as a journalist. I wanted to jump in and help people that had been impacted by getting their truths out into the media.”

The name ‘Grenfell Tower’ now conjures the same images of a burned husk of a building, standing tall among the West London skyline. However, it wasn’t always the case.

“I remember Grenfell when the refurbishment hadn’t happened. I can see it from my home and sometimes I would just take pictures out of my window, so I’ve actually got some really nice pictures of Grenfell before the refurbishment.

“I just remember the night of the fire, before anything had happened, looking at the tower and thinking that it didn’t look safe, and I didn’t like the plastic. I wondered to myself whether if it went up in flames would people escape with their lives. That was at 8:45pm the same night of the fire.”

What followed was the worst residential fire in the UK since the Second World War. In the days and weeks immediately afterwards, Danielle started to develop relationships with some of the survivors, as news of her work became known.

“After the fire I went down and started talking to people. Because I’m a local resident I needed to let them know that, ‘look, I am a local resident, I do know people, but look, I am a journalist and I do specialise in housing’, because I felt like it would have been inappropriate not to declare myself as a journalist. Then what happened is that some of the people I didn’t know before the fire started to gravitate towards me because they found out from other people in the community who had known me for years that they could trust me.

“I was then interviewing them for different publications, and I did an investigation for a newspaper about the mental health services that were provided after the fire, including suicides in the community after Grenfell. What I later found out is that after that investigation, staff at Central North West London Foundation NHS Trust decided to reconsult with the community, which is good. Sometimes we write things and we want change, but we don’t always know if change is going to happen.”

Danielle continues to ask questions as a means to instigate change. Her questions extend beyond just Grenfell though, with a focus on how we as a nation respond in disaster scenarios.

“In this nation we need to look at what we do when things happen – for example, Hillsborough, Grenfell, the London bombings… We need to look at how do we respond? How do we support people? How do we foster recovery and healing to help people rebuild their lives when something happens that we never expected to happen.”

Danielle has been working with HQN on a series of podcasts about Grenfell Tower as she investigates key housing issues through the lens of Grenfell.

“In the first podcast we met direct survivors from the fire, and we found out a bit about their journeys and what happened to them on the night of the fire, since the fire, and what they’d like to see happen now. One survivor, Emma O’Connor, talks about how she’d like to see more funding for the London fire brigade. We interviewed another survivor Antonio Roncolato and also Nour-eddine Aboudihaj who is the co-founder of the Grenfell Tower Trust about their plans and what their hopes are now, six years on from the fire, as well as about what the community still needs.

“Podcast number two was where I hosted a political round table with councillor Linda Wade. The point was to mainly discuss the Social Housing Regulation Bill and any changes that need to be made politically in terms of legislation moving forward, to safeguard people nationally. We just had news about how some of the firefighters from Grenfell have developed cancer as well.

“I also interviewed Yvette Williams who is the founder of Justice4Grenfell, and we spoke about her journey since the fire and what needs to change in terms of legislation. She has a campaign where she’s suggesting amendments to the Inquiries Act, with a petition that has around 60,000 signatures. She wants to see any recommendations that are made during an inquiry to automatically be implemented into statutory law. If recommendations from the Lakanal House fire had of been implemented, the Grenfell fire might not have happened.

“The podcast is where we can look at the national perspective issues that have come out of this local situation. I hope we are able to shine a light on some of the things that have been hidden, and I also hope we can influence change within policy and legislation at government level, so the whole country can benefit and be safer.”

The first episode of the podcast series, Through the Lens of Grenfell can be found here.

The second episode of the podcast can be viewed below.