Lendlease signs up to cladding remediation contract

Developer Lendlease has signed the government’s cladding contract, the company has announced.

The Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities confirmed this morning the Australian company had committed to fixing tower block safety defects, after missing last Monday’s deadline.

In a statement, the company said: “As a responsible global developer and investor we’ve always maintained that leaseholders shouldn’t be held liable for remediation costs and advocated for an industry wide solution encompassing all of the supply chain.

“Our board met this week and confirmed the company has signed up to the UK government’s developer remediation contract.”

The contract requires developers to resolve building safety issues on blocks where they have had any involvement, through building or refurbishing, in the last 30 years.

Last month, Lendlease said it would set aside £114m to pay for remediation of affected blocks, most of which it had inherited from its purchase of Crosby Homes in 2005 from the Berkeley Group.

Lendlease joins Telford Homes and London Square, and Anglo-Irish housebuilder Ballymore, in signing the contract after last week’s deadline. Another firm, the Emerson Group, which includes Jones Homes, has said it will sign up “imminently”.

Housing secretary Michael Gove last week threatened to put the 11 housebuilders who missed last Monday’s deadline “out of the housebuilding business entirely” unless they signed up.