Olympic Village owner and developer hit with £18m cladding bill

Stratford Village Development Partnership, the developer of London’s Olympic Village, and Get Living, which owns all the private rental properties on the site, have been ordered to pay around £18m in a dispute over cladding. The ruling was made by specialist property court the First-Tier Tribunal on 19 January. The case was brought by affordable housing company Triathlon Homes, which manages properties across the East Village estate and owns some of the long leases. According to the ruling, following the Grenfell Tower fire in 2017, the estate’s property management company discovered that combustible cladding had been used on five of the site’s 66 blocks. The five buildings concerned are Meller House, Chroma Mansions, Seasons House, Patina Mansions and Kaleidoscope House. Each block contains three-storey townhouses or maisonettes and retail units on the lower levels. The management company is currently removing and replacing the cladding using public money provided by the government’s Building Safety Fund. The work is scheduled to be completed by August next year. Even so, Triathlon applied to the tribunal for contributions from SVDP and Get Living under the 2022 Building Safety Act, which was passed in the wake of the Grenfell fire. The tribunal judges agreed. In their ruling they said Triathlon was entitled to just over £16m for remedial works and around £2m more for added costs. They also said the companies should prepare to deal with “future contingencies” that might arise from the project. Triathlon Homes LLP v Stratford Village Development Partnership and others First-tier Tribunal (Mr Justice Edwin Johnson, chamber president, Upper Tribunal, Lands Chamber, and Martin Rodger KC, deputy chamber president Upper Tribunal, Lands Chamber) To send feedback, e-mail newsdesk@eg.co.uk or tweet @EGPropertyNews Image © James Veysey/Shutterstock