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* Minister demands industry pays to make apartment buildings
safe
* Measures aimed at tackling buildings 11-18 metres high
* Early-March deadline set for fully funded plan
* Shares in major housebuilders fall
(Adds details, shares)
LONDON, Jan 10 (Reuters) - Britain has ordered housebuilders
to pay around $5.4 billion to help remove dangerous cladding
from buildings following a deadly 2017 London fire that left
government, developers and owners at loggerheads over how to
make properties safe.
The blaze at Grenfell Tower in London killed more than 70
people and revealed the widespread use of cheap flammable
cladding on apartment blocks across the country, requiring
expensive removal or round-the-clock fire watches.
Shares in developers fell on Monday after housing minister
Michael Gove set an early-March deadline for the industry to
agree a fully funded plan of action, including a dedicated fund
to deal with unsafe cladding.
FTSE-100 builders Persimmon, Barratt Developments
, Berkeley, and Taylor Wimpey were all
trading about 2% lower in early deals.
The government has already committed around 5 billion pounds
for repairs so far, and last year imposed a levy on
housebuilders to raise 2 billion pounds towards the cost over
the next 10 years.
It has so far targeted the removal of cladding on high-rise
properties. The announcement on Monday is designed to remove
cladding on buildings between 11 and 18 metres high where
tenants had been facing bills of tens of thousands of pounds to
remove cladding.
"It is neither fair nor decent that innocent leaseholders,
many of whom have worked hard and made sacrifices to get a foot
on the housing ladder, should be landed with bills they cannot
afford to fix problems they did not cause," Gove said.
He said the government would take all steps necessary to
make the industry pay, including restricting access to
government funding and future procurements, the use of planning
powers and the pursuit of companies through the courts.
If the industry failed to take responsibility, the
government would if necessary impose a solution in law, he
added.
The government has faced heavy criticism that it has taken
this long, with some leaseholders unable to sell their
properties when faced with bills that cost more than the value
of the apartment itself.
The cladding used on the Grenfell block was identified as
central to the rapid spread of the fire.
($1 = 0.7359 pounds)
(Reporting by Kate Holton and Paul Sandle; editing by Guy
Faulconbridge)
