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Bellway sets aside further £20m for fire safety remediation
Bellway, one of the country’s biggest house builders, has set aside £20.3m for fire safety remediation costs and suggested total spending in this area could increase further.
In its half-year results, Bellway said it had recognised an additional net legacy building safety expense of £20.3m in the six months to 31 January 2021.
It follows a £46.8m pot which was set aside by the group in October 2020.
Bellway said it has now provided £131.6m to fix legacy fire safety issues since 2017, adding that “the extent of the provision could increase, however, in line with normal accounting practice if new issues are identified, as building owners continue to undertake their own investigative works on other schemes within out legacy portfolio”.
The FTSE 250 company said it is also pursuing recoveries from third parties which has so far yielded £13.5m.
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A number of fellow house builders including Barratt, Persimmon and Taylor Wimpey have set aside large sums over the past year to fund fire safety works.
Elsewhere in its results, Bellway reported an 11.6% increase in revenue from £1.54bn to £1.72bn and a slight increase in profits from £356.5m to £357.5m compared to the same period last year.
The company said: “Bellway recognises its responsibilities in its legacy apartment portfolio and continues to review combustion risks, in external wall systems, on past high-rise developments.
“Initially, our review efforts were directed towards those buildings over 18 metres in height, where aluminium composite material had been used in the construction of the external wall envelope.
“The scope of our review has since widened, following the ‘Advice for Building Owners of Multi-Storey, Multi-Occupied Residential Buildings’, issued by the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government in January 2020.
“We therefore now approach this issue with the benefit of sector-wide hindsight and by applying revised guidance which clarifies the government’s interpretation of the extant building regulations that were in place at the time of construction.”
