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Tue March 19 2024

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Countryside allocates £19m for fire fix squad

19 May 22 Social housing builder Countryside has so many buildings it needs to fix that it is setting up a special operations team to take on the work.

Countryside has 123 buildings constructed within the last 30 years that it has promised the government that it will fix. Cladding needs replacing and other fire safety fixes are required.

“Due to the extent of the remediation works, a new standalone division has been established to manage and deliver the programme,” the company said today. It has set aside £19m for the cost of the new division, which is expected to take 10 years to complete its mission.

In its half-year accounts, the company has made a further £109m provision for remediating buildings. This is in addition to the £41.0m provided for in 2021, taking its total provision for fire safety to £150.0m.

Partly as a result of this, Countryside made a pre-tax loss of £181.5m for the six months to 31st March 2022 on revenue of £602.2m. (In the same period last year it made £38.8m profit on £661m revenue.)

“The quantification of the cost of these remedial works is inherently complex and depends on a number of factors including the size of the building and the cost of investigation, replacement materials, associated labour, and the potential cost of managing the disruption to residents,” the board said. “We have calculated our provision based on past experience of remediation costs and the best information available to us.”

Countryside claims to be the market leader in house-building partnerships with housing associations, public bodies and institutional private rental operators.

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