Court orders Urban Splash companies to pay £46.5m for building safety work
Five organisations linked to the developer will have to pay the government the majority of the £60.6m incurred making fire safety improvements to seven buildings in Manchester.
The buildings at the heart of the case are:
- Burton Place, Castlefield, Manchester M15 4LR
- Chips Building, 1 New Islington, Manchester M4 6BU
- Christabel House, Dalton Street, Manchester M40 7EH
- Emmeline House, Dalton Street, Manchester M40 7EB
- Moho Building, Ellesmere Street, Manchester M15 4FQ
- Sylvia House, Dalton Street, Manchester M40 7ED
- The Box Works, 4 Worsley Street, Manchester M15 4NU
The buildings in question were developed two decades ago, with several winning awards since then.
However, government inspectors found that they had considerable defects in terms of the use of combustible materials, cavity barriers, fire-stopping measures, and compartmentation that would prevent fire from spreading.
The government undertook the buildings’ remediation itself, using finances from the Building Safety Fund. This money, the government had successfully argued, should be repaid by the developer.
Urban Splash contended it was not able to do so due to financial reasons and also that the work that was done cost more than it would have if Urban Splash had led the project.
“Making buildings safe and protecting residents and leaseholders is of fundamental importance to Urban Splash,” said a spokesperson for the company.
“We have remained closely engaged throughout the remediation process, and we are pleased that the Tribunal recognised the ‘useful and responsible assistance’ Urban Splash provided with the post-Grenfell investigations into these buildings.
“We are, however, disappointed by the decision to include a number of entities which played no part in the original development of these seven buildings. This illustrates the extraordinary and far-reaching consequences of, ‘no-fault’ Building Safety Act which allows liability to extend beyond the original developer to associated companies which played no part in the original development of the buildings concerned.”
This is a developing story and will be updated.
