Persimmon identifies new buildings needing post-Grenfell upgrades

Housebuilder Persimmon has said it has identified another seven buildings that need to have cladding removed or other fire safety work after the Grenfell fire highlighted the need for change. The business said that after initial assessments it thinks four of the new developments will need only ‘minimal works’. It means that Persimmon will not have to pay for so-called remediation works on 80 sites across the country. So far it has completed work on 36 of these and hopes to have started on the rest by the end of the year. Persimmon set aside £275 million last year in order to support leaseholders in buildings it had constructed to remove combustible cladding. Similar cladding, which is put on the outside of a building, was widely blamed for the rapid spread of the fire at Grenfell Tower in London in 2017, which killed 72 people. Developers, including Persimmon, have signed deals with the Government that oblige them to make buildings safer. It comes as Persimmon reported a nearly 30% fall in revenue to £1.2 billion as it sold considerably fewer houses during the first six months of the year. Pre-tax profit fell by around two thirds to £151 million. The business said it had completed 4,249 new homes over the period, a reduction from 6,652 in the same time frame a year ago. Despite pressure on the housing market, the average price a Persimmon home sold for was £256,445, around £11,000 higher than a year earlier. ‘Against a backdrop of higher mortgage rates, the removal of Help to Buy and significant market uncertainty, Persimmon has delivered a robust sales rate excluding bulk sales while growing the private average selling price in our forward order book and also securing cost savings,’ said chief executive Dean Finch. ‘We are on track to deliver profit expectations for the year and are building a platform for future growth.’