The managers of London’s Olympic Village have set aside £433m to cover the costs of fire safety works across the East Village estate, according to its latest filed accounts. Meanwhile, the freehold owner of the estate has said it is “pursuing” the government-appointed contractors who built the properties.
The sum is significantly more than the £16m bill for fire safety works on five blocks in the estate that is currently the subject of a Court of Appeal challenge.
The figure is detailed in the strategic report for East Village Management Ltd, which manages the Olympic Village estate. The report covers the financial year ending 31 March 2024 and was filed on the Companies House website earlier this week.
According to the report, the contingent liability set aside was £432,737,000 – an increase from £95,293,000 at year end in 2023.
Build-to-rent company Get Living is the majority shareholder of EVML. In a statement, a spokesperson for Get Living said, while five blocks require the most fire-safety work, “buildings across the estate are affected”.
EVML has been working since 2020 to remove all flammable cladding. The £433m “provides and indicator of the sheer scale of the problem,” the statement said.
The development was build by the government’s Olympic Delivery Authority, which appointed the contractors who installed the cladding, the statement said.
“As such, we are pursuing the government-appointed contractors for their role in delivering faulty buildings and are in active discussions with the government to ensure the further works required at East Village progress as quickly and safely as possible,” the statement said.
The Olympic Village is the subject of an ongoing high-profile legal battle between the Get Living and Triathlon Homes, which manages the properties.
The case examines the regime put in place under the Building Safety Act of 2022 in the wake of the 2017 Grenfell Tower fire. The aim of the legislation is to make sure remedial works get completed quickly and don’t get mired in legal issues, and isn’t paid for by residents.
Under this regime, the government’s Building Safety Fund initially fronts the costs of rectifying fire safety and structural safety problems.
Then judges at specialist property tribunal the First-tier Tribunal can order a developer to repay the costs via a Remediation Contribution Order. The developer will usually then seek to recover the costs from the contractor responsible for the problem.
The Court of Appeal challenge focuses on the circumstances in which the tribunal should decline to make an order against a developer.
“Like many other building owners across the country, we are in the difficult position of fixing building safety issues that we inherited but had no role in designing or building,” Get Living said in its statement.
