Housebuilder Redrow is pledging £164m to rectify unsafe cladding on schemes that it has been involved in historically.
The further funding takes the cost of the Flintshire-headquartered firm’s total provision to tackle safety concerns on buildings to £200m.
Flintshire headquartered Redrow is one of the latest firms to sign up to the UK Government’s new Building Safety Pledge, in the wake of the Grenfell tragedy, which commits developers to pay for work on unsafe and non-compliant cladding on buildings between 36ft (11m) and 59ft (18m) high.
The firm said the pledge is in addition to the Residential Property Developer Tax of 4% of pre-tax profit which came into effect this month.
Redrow will now be responsible for remediating all buildings in which it was involved with in the last 30 years, whether or not it constructed them.
In February, Redrow reported in its interim results that it was setting aside an extra £10m to meet the UK Government’s demand taking its existing fire safety provision to £36m.
The company said the additional £164m will be treated as an exceptional item in the results for the 2022 financial year.
The majority of Redrow’s high rise apartment schemes were built between 2000 and 2010 and primarily outsourced the design and construction of those developments to contractors.
In a statement the firm said: “We believe the housebuilding industry should play its part in resolving the issue of legacy fire safety in high rise buildings and that the financial burden should not be borne by leaseholders.
"In signing up to the pledge we will be remediating all the buildings in which we were involved, whether or not we constructed them, going back 30 years. This is a highly complex matter and the exact remediation work required and for the exact number of buildings will take time to determine.
"Our existing provision for fire safety in high rise buildings is £36m. Based on the latest information we have and the work done by our internal teams we believe an additional provision of £164m is required as a result of the pledge.
“We will work with leaseholders to remediate their buildings and, where possible, pursue recoveries from main contractors, warranty providers and other third parties.
“As these recoveries are not certain, they have not been recognised in estimating the provision. These remediation works are expected to take a number of years to complete.”
MJ Gleeson has also signed the pledge and is undertaking assessments on 15 buildings it helped to develop which are more than 36ft (11m) tall.
MJ Gleeson chief executive James Thompson said: “Leaseholders should not have to pay for any costs associated with life-critical fire safety issues and I support the Government’s efforts to engage the wider industry in remediating buildings made unsafe by life-critical fire safety issues.
He added: “The housebuilding sector has responded positively to this initiative and is playing a proactive role and at significant cost. We will continue to work constructively with DLUHC (Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities) and the wider sector to ensure that this issue is resolved expeditiously.”
