East Village Management Limited (EVML) has increased its fire safety remediation provision to more than £432 million after new defects at London’s former Olympic Village were identified, Inside Housing has revealed.
EVML, which manages the former Olympic Park turned East Village residential complex, detailed in its strategic report for the year ending 31 March 2024 a liability in respect of fire safety works. The management company cited a fire safety provision of £432,737,00, an increase from its 2023 provision of £95,293,000.
As reported by Inside Housing, recent surveys carried out had identified “fire safety defects within the internal fabric of the buildings”.
Originally developed by Stratford Village Development Partnership, a subsidiary of Get Living, in its report, EVML said that PAS 9980 was the government’s recommended guidance for the fire safety of external walls, adding that the company had “obtained expert assistance in scoping and managing its response to this guidance”. Additionally, the directors were “aware of legislation to protect certain leaseholders from the burden of building safety costs, in particular the Building Safety Act 2022 and the associated regulations that implement and supplement its provisions”.
Noting that it would be “unable to recover the costs of remedying and mitigating building safety defects through the service charge,” EVML said there was some “uncertainty as to how the company’s future costs in respect of the required fire safety works will be funded.”
Alternative routes had been identified, with recovery to be made from “third parties including the original developer, freeholders, and other landlords and potentially also the contractors”.
In terms of government grants and government funding, EVML said: “The Ministry of Housing, Communities, and Local Government has provided government funding to the Company of £24,657,957 (203: £1,590,403) to fund certain fire safety related costs recognised in the year by the Company.”
As previously reported by the FPA, following a first-tier tribunal order, legal representatives for Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner intervened in an appeal hearing between Get Living and Triathlon Homes regarding the validity of an £18 million cladding bill.
A spokesperson for Get Living told Inside Housing that its priority remained the safety of East Village residents and that it was “progressing work to fix the faulty construction work carried out by the government-appointed contractors as quickly as possible”.
“The provision of £433m in EVML’s financial statements for fire safety works is not a Get Living provision, however it provides an indication of the sheer scale of the problem at East Village. Like many other building owners across the country, we are in the difficult position of fixing building safety issues that we inherited but had no role in designing or building.
“As such, we are pursuing the government-appointed contractors for their role in delivering faulty buildings and are in active discussions with the government to ensure the further works required at East Village progress as quickly and safely as possible.
“East Village is the former athletes’ village for the 2012 London Olympic Games and was built by the government’s Olympic Delivery Authority and its contractors, who then converted the buildings into homes before selling the development to our original investors. Our investigations found the works delivered by these parties to be faulty and require extensive remediation.
“Remediation works have been progressing since 2020, including the removal of all ACM [aluminium composite material cladding] from external walls and the full remediation of the five most affected buildings, and there is a plan in place for EVML to deliver the remaining programme.
“In the meantime, an independent fire assessor has confirmed that all homes in East Village remain safe to occupy.”