Builders plot legal action to thwart Gove ban

HOUSING developers are preparing to fight a Government demand to spend billions on cladding repair costs after Michael Gove threatened to block the industry from building new properties.

Major housebuilders plan to hire a Big Four accounting firm to examine whether the Levelling Up Secretary’s £4bn price tag for a cladding compensation scheme is too high. Their trade body, the Home Builders Federation (HBF), is also set to instruct external lawyers so it is ready to take legal action.

Mr Gove sparked fury at a meeting on Thursday when he threatened to withhold planning permission for new developments unless big housebuilders agreed to pay up by early March.

One developer said that the policy would trigger “judicial review after judicial review” if implemented.

An appeal by the HBF for Mr Gove to work with the industry appears to have fallen on deaf ears.

The federation wrote to him on Tuesday calling for cooler rhetoric, and warned that failure to compromise may mean fewer homes are built in a blow to efforts to tackle the housing crisis.

The HBF said: “While we all understand that criticism of developers plays well in the media, extreme language about the sector as a whole and general anti-business sentiment undermines efforts that many builders are making to resolving remediation projects.”

Mr Gove has made it his priority to resolve the cladding crisis, in which 274,000 properties were found to contain unsafe building materials after the Grenfell tower fire.

In 2020, a £5bn fund was set up for people who live in buildings over 18 metres (59ft) tall to get a grant to remove cladding. This is partially funded by a tax on the industry. However, people living in buildings between 11m and 18m tall are not covered by this scheme.

Mr Gove has said that the industry should be forced to pay for cladding to be removed from these properties.