The housebuilding arm of Rydon, the company which refurbished the Grenfell Tower, has been blocked from the government’s Help to Buy loan scheme.
Levelling up and housing secretary Michael Gove said Rydon Homes had been excluded from the scheme following “extremely concerning” evidence arising from the public inquiry into the fire.
It means Rydon Homes no longer has government support and cannot market its properties to first-time buyers with the offer of government-backed loans, pending the outcome of the inquiry.
The housebuilder is the sister company of Rydon Maintenance, and the two have directors in common. The latter was the lead contractor on the refurbishment of Grenfell Tower, before the 2017 fire which killed 72 people.
Gove warned of consequences for companies that shared responsibility for the building safety crisis, as well as those that could do more to help fix it.
The secretary of state has also written to the chair of the Housing, Communities and Local Government Select Committee and to Homes England, which oversees Help to Buy, to inform them of his decision.
He said: “It is in the public interest to exclude Rydon Homes from the Help to Buy scheme with immediate effect given the extremely concerning evidence heard by the Grenfell Tower Inquiry about its sister company.
“The development and construction industry should be in no doubt: I will continue to go after those who put lives at risk, are responsible for the building safety crisis and are failing to play their part in fixing it. The Grenfell community and innocent leaseholders deserve better.”
The decision comes days after Gove said he was “glad” the Mercedes F1 racing team had ended its partnership with Kingspan, another cladding firm linked to the fire.
The deal, which had been condemned by the bereaved and survivors of the fire, had come under criticism over the manufacturer’s role in supplying insulation for the tower and marketing its products for use on other high-rise buildings.
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