A £15m legal claim over flammable cladding on a high-rise site in London has been paused pending a mediation procedure.
Social housing provider London & Quadrant Housing Trust (L&Q) brought the claim for damages against Bouygues UK. L&Q claims it remediated two 10-storey buildings with flammable cladding and “poorly fitted” insulation, in the wake of the Grenfell Tower fire.
The parties have now agreed to resolve the dispute via mediation, according to a High Court document published on 25 November. The mediation is scheduled for 1 April 2025.
Following the Grenfell Tower fire in 2017, which killed 72 people, building owners were compelled to check high-rise sites across the UK for aluminium composite material (ACM) cladding, which was partly responsible for the spread of the fire on Grenfell Tower.
In its assessment of George House and Swift House in South Kilburn – made up of 286 flats and maisonettes – L&Q said both were fitted with “defective and dangerous” ACM. The buildings are more than 18 metres in height.
Residents were not evacuated from George House or Swift House as the London Fire Brigade did not believe they were high-risk because the fire safety systems were all in place, according to meeting minutes by Brent Council.
But after it removed the ACM cladding in September 2018, L&Q says it found a number of fire-safety and structural issues that it had to fix.
As well as the cladding, L&Q claims it found “inadequately specified and wrongly installed” insulation on the site, which could have allowed fire and smoke to penetrate the building and spread, as well as “inadequate” and missing fire cavities.
The social housing provider also found “widespread instances of over stressing and movement to the cladding support frames” across the two buildings. It started remediation works in 2018 and completed them in 2020, the court documents say.
The ACM Reynobond PE cladding used on the site – similar to the one used on Grenfell Tower – was “unmodified, highly combustible and flammable material”, L&Q claims.
The insulation also had to be replaced after some of the insulation panels were “cut carelessly” and arranged “incorrectly” – leading to gaps that would allow “fire and smoke easily to penetrate and spread” up the building, the social housing provider claims.
L&Q also says it found combustible softwood timber and roofing felt at the site, and cementitious boarding containing “highly flammable” woodchip, while the horizontal and vertical cavity fire barriers were “inadequate and ineffective”.
L&Q also claims there were “no fire cavity barriers or other fire protection” around the windows of the two buildings.
The social housing provider also found multiple structural issues with the site, including changes to the roof design that “shortened its lifespan” and led to water ingress. It further found “widespread instances” of over-stressing and movement to the cladding support frames in the two buildings.
The blocks were built by Denne Construction, which scooped the £34.9m job in 2010, according to the court documents. Bouygues acquired Denne Construction in 2016, taking on its liabilities as part of the deal.
On 31 October this year, L&Q launched legal action against Bouygues “in excess of £15m”, arguing that it “fell below the standard reasonably to be expected of a professional design and build contractor”, and that it caused L&Q “significant loss and damage”.
Most of that was for the remediation work to the external walls and roof, which cost £6.2m, according to the court documents. L&Q is also claiming £4.5m for the costs of the waking watch installed to monitor the site in the months following the Grenfell Tower fire, “overheads” and management costs caused by the defective system, which amount to £1.4m, and £215,800 for the design and tender of the remediation works.
It also includes an indemnity for any claims brought by residents or occupants against the social housing provider, and damages to reflect the cost of having to remedy any further latent defects found.
L&Q expects that to add up to more than £15m of damages, plus overheads could increase over time.
In its court filings, L&Q points to the contract it signed with Denne, which stipulated that the contractor was responsible for any errors in the design and construction of the two buildings “regardless of whether such errors were committed by [the contractor] or by third party subcontractors and whatever the stage of the contract”.
In remediating the building, L&Q had to pay for the cladding system and insulated render to be removed “in their entirety” and then replaced, while it had to remove the entire external walls to remediate the fire cavity barrier defects, according to the legal documents.
The legal case has been suspended until 4pm on 4 April 2025.
In a statement provided to Construction News , Bouygues UK confirmed the details of the claim but said it was unable to provide further comment due to the ongoing legal process.
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Joshua Stein