Housebuilders have committed a further £1.5bn after signing Michael Gove’s building safety pledge.
Barratt Developments has warned that its share alone will cost an extra £350m. The housebuilder has become the latest firm to sign the pledge, which commits developers to fix the cladding on tower blocks they have built.
Barratt, a FTSE 100 member with a market value of about £5.4bn, had set aside £79m already. It has warned it will cost another £350m to £400m to keep up its end of the deal with the government.
Redrow has said it will have to set aside £200m, five times as much as the £36m it has already committed.
The two are the latest to sign the pledge after Crest Nicholson, Persimmon, Berkeley and Taylor Wimpey confirmed on Tuesday that they had signed. MJ Gleeson has also signed, but said it did not expect to be much affected.
Between them, the big listed developers have now committed about £1.5bn to fix fire safety issues on their buildings.
It is understood that after months of talks, developers, led by the Home Builders Federation, have agreed to pay to fix cladding and other fire safety issues at tower blocks more than 11m high that they built or had any involvement in. They have also agreed to fix issues that have arisen in the past 30 years, having previously proposed to go back to 2000, and have committed to not drawing on the building safety fund to cover their costs.
The introduction of the pledge is being seen as a major victory for the housing secretary. The outlay is on top of a targeted £2bn levy on the sector introduced by Gove’s predecessor Robert Jenrick.
