The council leader of Kensington and Chelsea said it "will not shy away" from the truth of what happened at Grenfell as she pledged to "reach out to all our communities" on the tough job of rebuilding trust after the tragedy.

Councillors united to stand for 72 seconds silence in honour of those who died during last June’s Grenfell Tower tragedy at their annual general meeting on Wednesday evening (May 23).

The unprecedented incident was on the mind of everyone in the council chamber for the sombre meeting, the first after this month's elections which saw the Conservatives maintain their hold on the council with 36 seats. Labour had gained one bringing their total to 13, with one Liberal Democrat.

Council leader Elizabeth Campbell, who was re-elected at the meeting told the gathering: “We are going to be tested.”

"We need to reach out to all our communities to start the long, slow process of rebuilding trust," she said.

She told long-standing and new councillors “we are going to depend on your experience”.

She pledged that “we are going to make this a listening borough. At a minimum we will be opening up full council meetings to public participation."

Elizabeth Campbell speaks to the media after the Conservatives maintained control of the council for Kensington and Chelsea

Cllr Campbell added it was important to be “properly held to account by the people that we serve and be judged for what we do and what we say. We certainly will be judged by our past actions.”

She described how she has been attending the commemorative hearings which started the Grenfell Inquiry this week together with councillor Kim Taylor-Smith.

“The testimonies are powerful, emotional and dignified.”

Cllr Campbell told the gathering, which was also attended by members of the public: “It is our responsibility that the whole unvarnished truth is told.

"We will not shy away from that, nor from the implications and the consequences of telling the truth."

'We owe it to those who have died'

She added: "We have handed over hundreds of thousands of documents to the police and to the inquiry. We will give them both everything they ask for and everything they need in order to find out what happened.

"We owe it to those who have died, to those left behind, those who lost everything, and those who will continue to carry the emotional burden of Grenfell. And we must make sure such a tragedy can never happen again."

Labour leader Robert Atkinson, whose Notting Dale ward includes Grenfell Tower, said: “The Grenfell fire and its aftermath has demonstrated to the country and indeed to the world what we have repeated ad nauseum, that Kensington and Chelsea is a borough split down the middle and contains extreme levels of wealth and extreme levels of poverty.”

He said the council leader “has shown humility” but that the council will continue to be tested and his party, the majority opposition, will hold it to account.

“We need to focus on providing housing for ordinary people and not the oligarchs.”

Tributes to the victims of the Grenfell Tower disaster under the A40 flyover in Kensington

He said the council needs to focus on providing housing for the elderly and “people damaged by the fire”.

Councillor Atkinson said the trauma of Grenfell goes beyond the Lancaster West estate.

Replying to the Tory leader, he added: "What I really want to see is what you have learned and how you are going to act."

During the meeting, mayor Marie-Therese Rossi was also elected for another year. She paid tribute to those who died at Grenfell and their loved ones who are making their tributes during the commemorative hearings at the public inquiry.

The new deputy mayor Mohammed Bakhtiar said: “We need to rise to new challenges and new ideas and ways of engaging both amongst ourselves and our residents.”

The council also agreed to add Notting Hill Carnival to its Statement of Licensing Policy (SLP) for the first time.