UK housebuilder Taylor Wimpey sets aside £30m for Grenfell-style cladding

The UK housebuilder Taylor Wimpey has set aside £30m to replace flammable cladding on its developments after the Grenfell Tower disaster.

The firm has made a stand following the tragedy last year and has said it is “morally right” to help customers and ensure disasters like that in west London in June 2017 do not happen again.

The initiative will involve all of the buildings which were constructed using aluminium composite material, a similar material to that used on Grenfell Tower. However, most of the money is set to be for work on a development in Scotland, which was constructed under a previous set of building regulations.

Pete Redfern, Taylor Wimpey’s chief executive, said the company’s primary goal in embarking on the re-cladding project was to ensure that “any work is undertaken properly and promptly” and that no customers would be “impacted by bills that are significantly greater than normal maintenance”.

He added: “Whilst each example is slightly different, and this is an exceptionally complex issue, we have in a number of cases agreed to support customers both financially and practically with removal and replacement plans, even though the buildings concerned met the requirements of building regulations at the time construction was formally approved. We have taken this decision for buildings constructed recently because we believe that it is morally right, not because it is legally required.”

Furthermore, Taylor Wimpey announced its first-half year results which saw pre-tax profits were up by 48% year-on-year from £205m to £301m. Although, the firm only completed 6,497 homes, as compared to 6,648 homes during the same period in the prior year and this 3% drop was blamed on poor weather at the start of the year.

Redfern added: “As employment prospects remain positive and mortgage availability is good, customer demand for our homes has been strong in spite of some wider macroeconomic uncertainty. With a strong order book in place, we are confident in our prospects for the remainder of the year and looking further ahead.”