Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:

To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, whether Stage 1 of the additional environmental checks due to be carried out by AECOM in the area around Grenfell Tower has commenced.

An independent specialist contractor, AECOM, has been appointed to undertake Stage 1 of the checks which involves background research to identify historical sources of pollution, analysis and exploratory sampling to inform the development of a more detailed specification for the main stage of the site investigation.

Exploratory sampling in priority locations has started and community workshops took place on 25 and 27 April to inform the scope and priorities for Stage 1 of the investigation. We expect this stage to take about three months from start to finish.