London Fire Brigade commissioner Dany Cotton to stand down early

London Fire Brigade (LFB) commissioner Dany Cotton is to stand down four months earlier than planned in light of the Grenfell Tower inquiry backlash.

Previously, Cotton was due to step down in April 2020 when she planned to retire from the LFB, but had faced many calls to resign after the public inquiry report into the Grenfell Tower disaster, which killed 72 people in June 2017, was released.

Cotton is now to leave the London Fire Brigade at the end of December, after 32 years of service for the department and while the Mayor of London Sadiq Khan heaped praise on her for her service, he also said that the decision for her to stand down was “the right one.”

Cotton had declared Grenfell as “without doubt the worst fire” that the LFB had faced and many inside the industry have questioned whether the treatment that she has received from the outside world has been misinformed.

The report stated that many lives could’ve been saved had the advice for residents to stay put been shelved before 02:35am, though by the time that the London Fire Brigade arrived on the scene, the whole building was in flames as a result of the cladding on the building’s exterior.

One thing that Cotton mentioned in her defence was that the ‘stay put’ instruction had been used in every single other high rise fire that she had attended with no casualties, but as we now tragically know, the nature of Grenfell was completely different.

It is unsure as to when the London Fire Brigade will hire a replacement for Cotton.