£1.8bn house giant’s £20m for fire safety

BUILDING giant Bellway has set aside a further £20million to fix fire-trap flats amid record house sales and revenues.

The developer said the extra funding takes the amount it has pledged for fire safety since the 2017 Grenfell disaster to £131million.

It has made £1.8billion in profit during that period.

Bellway said the commitment showed it was taking a ‘responsible approach’ to the building safety scandal, but campaigners dismissed the pledge as ‘marketing’. It came as the developer reported record revenues of £1.7billion for the six months to January 31, up 11 per cent on the same period last year.

It is the latest construction giant to set aside cash to fix unsafe homes since the Mail launched its campaign to end the cladding scandal in January. Government funding to fix the problem has more than trebled to £5billion, while four out of the UK’s five biggest developers have earmarked sums for repairs. But the Mail yesterday revealed these firms have pledged just over £400million between them, despite making almost £10billion since Grenfell. It means around £9billion is still missing from the estimated £15billion total cost of the scandal – leaving leaseholders still facing shock bills of tens of thousands of pounds each.

Developers have refused to say how many buildings need costly repairs, making it impossible to tell if their funds are adequate.

Bellway chairman Paul Hampden Smith said the firm ‘ recognises concerns with regards to fire safety in apartment buildings’. He said the total £131million ‘is a substantial sum which demonstrates Bellway’s responsible approach to supporting customers’.

But Giles Grover, of the End Our Cladding Scandal campaign, said: ‘This seems to only be an attempt at brand marketing to us.’ Bellway recorded a 4 per cent fall in pre-tax profits to £280million in the six months to January 31, but a record 5,656 sales. It expects to sell 10,000 homes in the year to the end of July, 25 per cent more than last year.

The housebuilding sector has been boosted by incentives such as the stamp duty holiday. Ministers faced a backlash over a decision to exclude those living in small and medium-rise buildings from funds to replace unsafe cladding. It means those in smaller blocks face bills of up to £600 a year to make their homes safe.

On Monday, 33 Tory MPs rebelled against plans to allow building owners to pass fire safety costs on to leaseholders, but the Government won the vote by a majority of 69.