The claim against Berkeley
Lendlease Europe Holdings wants Berkeley Group to contribute to repair costs on the basis of its previous ownership and control of Crosby, according to Construction News. The UK-based European holding company is seeking building liability orders, an indemnity or a contribution, as well as interest.
The claim relies in part on Lendlease’s commitments under the 2023 developer remediation contract. That agreement committed 53 companies to correcting defects in their buildings and repaying public money already used for that work. Construction News reviewed court documents supplied by litigation analytics firm Solomonic.
The building liability orders sought include anticipatory orders. Lendlease wants these to make Berkeley responsible for relevant liabilities of Crosby companies where the underlying liabilities are established. The application therefore seeks orders linking Berkeley to those liabilities, rather than reporting an existing court finding against it.
Lendlease says it will account for money already recovered from other supply-chain businesses when seeking an indemnity or contribution. Berkeley had not filed a defence at the time of the Construction News report and declined to comment.
The Crosby acquisition
Berkeley sold Crosby to the Lendlease group in a £261m transaction completed in 2005. The companies within Crosby had either developed the properties named in the claim or were still developing them when the sale took place.
The schemes date from the late 1990s onwards and are spread across England. Leeds, Birmingham and Swindon are among the locations identified. Lendlease has previously attributed a substantial part of its remediation requirements to buildings inherited through the acquisition, including a £114m provision in 2023 covering 56 buildings.
The allegations at Whitehall Quay
The highest amount sought for any single development is £10.2m for 3 Whitehall Quay in Leeds. Built between 2000 and 2002, it consists of three buildings reaching 15 storeys. Its original stay-put fire strategy has been replaced in recent years by a mass evacuation strategy.
According to Lendlease’s claim, inspections and reports undertaken after the Grenfell Tower fire identified problems with the external walls. Lendlease alleges that these defects breached Building Regulations and left the building unfit for habitation. These are allegations in the claim, not findings by the court.
The wall construction is described in the documents as brickwork on a steel frame containing combustible polyisocyanurate, or PIR, insulation. Lendlease alleges that the steel framing had no sheathing board and that inspectors could not observe vertical cavity barriers. It also alleges poor installation of horizontal cavity barriers, with barriers missing at some floor slab levels.
The claim identifies steel-clad buttress fins containing expanded polystyrene beside timber balconies. These were at a corner that, according to the documents, fire engines could not access. Separately, Lendlease reports about 145 internal wall construction defects and 184 fire door construction defects, which it says undermined the building’s ability to contain fire within compartments.
Repair work and the remaining schemes
Court documents record a pre-contractual services agreement with Errigal Facades for Whitehall Quay. They say work was expected to begin in July, with a submission to the Building Safety Regulator planned for September. The supplied report does not confirm whether either step took place.
Five further developments are presented as sample buildings in the claim. Together with Whitehall Quay, they illustrate the external-wall defects alleged across all 20 schemes and the internal compartmentation defects identified at 16 of them.
The sums sought for individual developments range from £1.3m to £10.2m. The repair programmes are at different stages: some schemes have already been remediated, while work at others has not begun. Lendlease says its estimated losses could rise as repairs continue or start at the remaining locations.