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Housing association settles court claim with developer over estate block fire
Metropolitan Thames Valley (MTVH) has settled its court claim against a developer over a fire at a south-west London estate.
Before the claim was settled out of court, MTVH had been seeking “damages and/or indemnity” from St James, part of the Berkeley Group, over the Richmond House fire.
A claim form submitted to the court in July 2021, seen by Inside Housing this month, stated that MTVH expected to recover “in excess of £6m plus costs” from the developer.
However, due to the early settlement, Inside Housing understands that Mr Justice Pepperall of the Technology and Construction Court dismissed the case against house builder St James in February.
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Richmond House, part of the Worcester Park estate in south-west London, burned to the ground in a devastating fire in September 2019 that destroyed all 23 flats and left 60 residents homeless.
It later emerged that cavity barriers in the timber-framed building were “defective” and “contributed nothing” to preventing the blaze from spreading into the internal structure and destroying the building.
Berkeley built the building in 2011 before selling it to MTVH, with all the flats sold to leaseholders as shared ownership properties.
MTVH’s claim form had argued that, following the fire, “investigations revealed that Richmond House was designed and constructed in contravention of building regulations and contained defects in the external wall construction, and in the internal fire-stopping and compartmentation”.
Such defects “amounted to breaches of the purchase and development agreement and/or the Defective Premises Act 1972 and/or negligence,” the housing association claimed.
It continued: “Richmond House required total demolition and reconstruction. The claimants seek damages and/or indemnity accordingly.”
MTVH alleged St James had “admitted liability at a public meeting on 27 November 2019”, adding it would “rely on such admission as necessary”.
In 2022, MTVH reported that it had set aside “£12.9m in one-off costs relating to a fire on its Worcester Park estate”, although its 2021-22 annual report specified that this comprised £7.3m of net costs for Worcester Park and £5.6m for other fire remedial costs.
The landlord has since restored the block and remediated others on the same estate.
An MTVH spokesperson said: “Our insurers have agreed to fund the remediation of Richmond House, and this is expected to complete very soon. Over the coming months we will be welcoming back those residents who have chosen to return and doing all that we can to help them to settle back in.”
Berkeley Group/St James declined to comment on the settlement.
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