A building developer has been ordered to pay more than £45m to the government after fire safety defects were repaired in seven high-rise buildings.
The buildings in Manchester, developed by Urban Splash between 2000 and 2008, were alleged to have serious defects discovered in inspections after the Grenfell Tower disaster.
The extent of the defects was disputed but they have been fixed at a cost of more than £60m, with about £51.1m paid from the government’s Building Safety Fund (BSF) established after the disaster.
The buildings were not owned by Urban Splash at the time of the remediation work and no BSF money was paid to it. A spokesperson said the scale of the liability was “significant”.
The Department of Housing, Communities and Local Government brought a case to a specialist tribunal, seeking an order for the developer to contribute towards the cost of the works paid from the taxpayer-supported fund.
On Thursday, the tribunal ruled that more than £45.7m should be paid to the government by Urban Splash.
Judge Jonathan Holbrook, sitting with two other First Tier Tribunal members, said in a 260-page judgment there was a “powerful case” for the developer “rather than the taxpayer, to bear the remediation costs”.
He later said: “We accept that Urban Splash provided useful and responsible assistance with the post-Grenfell investigations into the safety of these buildings.
“But there is an important distinction between assisting those investigations and accepting financial responsibility for the resulting remediation.”