In April last year, Persimmon was inspecting ‘hundreds’ of homes in Plymouth, after news earlier that year that a resident in a block of flats in Exeter claimed his pet python’s escape and discovery ‘exposed fire safety breaches’ in ‘missing’ fire safety compartmentation. Persimmon later admitted it was inspecting a ‘wider area of properties’, with inspections broadened out.
In March 2019 missing barriers were confirmed in properties in Cornwall and Devon, and over 650 homes in the south west had ‘missing or incorrectly installed’ barriers. In May a BBC Watchdog Live investigation found that new homes have ‘potentially dangerous’ issues, including being sold with ‘missing or incorrectly installed’ fire barriers.
One Exeter estate had 37% of homes missing fire barriers, and ‘serious breaches ha[d] gone undetected during construction’, while a 48 apartment Coventry building was evacuated after defects were found. It was then revealed that nearly 50 new builds in Kent were to be inspected due to ‘concerns’ over whether ‘adequate’ fire safety measures had been installed correctly in roofs, and in September 2019 homes in Barry, Wales were found to have the same issues.
In December 2019, the company was found by an independent review it commissioned to have experienced a ‘systemic nationwide failure’ to install firestopping, and was leaving customers exposed to an ‘intolerable risk’ of fire. It also noted that the failure to meet minimum building standards was a ‘manifestation of poor culture’, and urged directors to ‘reconsider Persimmon’s purpose and ambition’, as it has a ‘nationwide problem of missing and/or incorrectly installed cavity barriers in its timber-frame properties’.
Despite having ‘reacted quickly’, Persimmon only inspected the eaves of properties, ‘and not assessed whether the same problem was occurring in party walls and around windows and doors’. The company has undertaken over 16,000 inspections, and would take ‘all reasonable action to identify and remediate every house’ affected. A ‘culture of non-observance’ to safety checks, with staff having treated them as a ‘mere box-ticking exercise […] stemm[ed] from a belief that any single stage is not important, as another check or inspection will follow later’.
Another development in Cornwall was set to be inspected, while Dame Judith Hackitt stated that she would be ‘very surprised’ if the homebuilder’s issue with fire safety was just affecting Persimmon, and most recently it was reported that the company is inspecting around 500 timber framed homes per week via third party contractors as well as its own site based staff.
The company refused to say how many homes are failing inspections, but it was understood that ‘this applies to more than half of homes under scrutiny’, and Persimmon has ‘already taken measures’ in 2020 to ‘introduce a customer retention scheme’, becoming the first housebuilder to do so.
Consultancy UK has now reported on Arup’s appointment by Persimmon to ‘assess’ its fire safety issues after the ‘damning report’, noting that Persimmon ‘has attempted to save face by claiming this is an industry-wide problem’. However, it has had to ‘hastily devise a group construction policy’ including ‘appropriate supervision and training of construction staff’, and as part of this engaged Arup to ‘support the change’.
Arup will work in this vein as a fire engineer to ‘ensure’ Persimmon ‘correctly identified the extent and nature of the problem in existing properties’ and is ‘taking the necessary steps to rectify any issues’, while also ‘working to ensure that homes built in the future are fire-safe’.
A spokesperson from Persimmon said: ‘Persimmon fully accepts that there has been a failing in the overall supervision and inspection regime which includes its own internal processes… Persimmon commissioned the review to provide a transparent and objective review of the action we are taking to improve areas such as build quality. The wide range of measures we have introduced together with the action we are proposing are intended to ensure that build quality problems are addressed.’