Rydon is a British construction company which was founded in 1978 and employs over 650 people. [1] Its head office is in Forest Row, East Sussex, [2] and it has offices in Bristol, Dartford, London and Preston.
Rydon is a British construction company which was founded in 1978 and employs over 650 people. [1] Its head office is in Forest Row, East Sussex, [2] and it has offices in Bristol, Dartford, London and Preston.
Rydon was the main contractor for refurbishment of the Grenfell Tower (destroyed by fire in June 2017), in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, although it sub-contracted the "design and installation of the external cladding" to Harley Facades. [3] [4] The contractor originally scheduled to undertake the Grenfell renovation was rejected because its quotation of £11.28 million exceeded the £10 million budget set by the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea and Kensington and Chelsea TMO (KCTMO). Rydon gained approval for the project with a quote of £8.7 million after the contract was put out to further competitive tender. [5] The geographer Gordon MacLeod has described KCTMO's contract with Rydon, and Rydon's use of subcontractors in the refurbishment, as an instance of "the disavowal of democracy" that led to the fire. [6]
The UK government subsequently placed Rydon on an official list of firms recommended to build high-rise housing, a move that sparked anger among Grenfell survivors. [7]
In reaction to comments made on Twitter by pressure group Grenfell United, Robert Jenrick, the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, replied on Twitter stating that "The contractor should not bid for further work until we know the truth." [8] [9]
Separately to Jenrick's comments, the Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, announced that Rydon would be excluded from the London Development Panel (LDP2) framework listing approved suppliers for housing works until the Grenfell Tower Inquiry outcome is known. [10]
In response to a request [11] filed on behalf of several invidividuals and companies linked to the Grenfell Tower refurbishment (including Rydon), the Attorney General for England and Wales, Suella Braverman, confirmed that witnesses would be immune from prosecution based on their statements to the enquiry. [12]
In July 2020 the Grenfell Tower Inquiry heard that Rydon secretly kept £126,000 paid by KCTMO when switching the cladding on Grenfell Tower, by informing KCTMO that the savings afforded by using more flammable plastic-filled aluminium panels in place of the originally specified zinc cladding would be less than they in fact were. The inquiry also heard that Rydon promised on five occasions to appoint fire safety advisers but failed to do so. [13] During the inquiry Simon Lawrence, who led Rydon's work on Grenfell Tower, described residents of the buildings who complained about fire safety conditions prior to the fire as "aggressive"; he claimed that "regardless of what work was being carried out [they] would still have found a reason to complain." [14]
In July 2023, Rydon revealed a provision of £26.7m to cover the cost of its part of a settlement with over 900 survivors and bereaved family members of the tragedy. [15]
Rydon was the main contractor responsible for the 2015–2016 refurbishment of the Chalcots Estate, in the London Borough of Camden. In November 2019, Camden Council began High Court proceedings against Rydon to recover costs relating to repairs to the Chalcots Estate. [16]
In April 2021, Rydon Group sold its southeastern and southwestern contracting businesses, with 100 staff and 10 Rydon Construction contracts ranging in value from £10m to £180m, to a newly established company, Real. [17] In September 2023, Real LSE (Real London and South East) filed to go into administration, [18] followed by the southwest region in early October. [19]
Carillion plc was a British multinational construction and facilities management services company headquartered in Wolverhampton in the United Kingdom, prior to its liquidation in January 2018.
The Berkeley Group Holdings plc is a British property developer and house-builder based in Cobham, England. It is listed on the London Stock Exchange and is a constituent of the FTSE 100 Index.
Kier Group plc is a British construction, services and property group active in building and civil engineering, support services, and the Private Finance Initiative.
The Construction Products Association (CPA) is a UK construction industry trade association. It represents and champions manufacturers and suppliers of construction products. As well as representing some of the largest construction product manufacturers in the UK, the CPA also acts as the 'umbrella' trade organisation for dozens of sector and product-specific trade associations, which themselves represent thousands of companies, mostly SMEs and family-run businesses.
Willmott Dixon is a privately owned contracting, residential development and property support business.
Kensington and Chelsea TMO (KCTMO) was the largest tenant management organisation (TMO) in England, managing nearly 10,000 properties on behalf of Kensington and Chelsea London Borough Council – the entire council housing stock in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea.
Kingspan Group plc is a building materials company based in Ireland, trading in over 80 countries with more than 210 factories employing over 22,000 people. The company operates with six divisions; Insulated Panels, Insulation, Light & Air, Water & Energy, and, Data & Flooring, Roof & Waterproofing.
Robert Edward Jenrick is a British politician serving as Minister of State for Immigration since October 2022. He previously served as Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government from 2019 to 2021 and as Minister of State for Health from September to October 2022. A member of the Conservative Party, Jenrick has been Member of Parliament (MP) for Newark since 2014.
SureserveGroup plc is a UK-based asset and energy support services group. It was founded in 1988, with headquarters in Dartford, Kent. In October 2018, it employed around 2,000 staff in 23 UK offices.
Emma Dent Coad is a British politician who served as Member of Parliament (MP) for Kensington from 2017 to 2019. A former member of the Labour Party, she has been a member of Kensington and Chelsea London Borough Council since 2006. She resigned her Labour membership on 27 April 2023, but remains on the local council as an independent.
On 14 June 2017, a high-rise fire broke out in the 24-storey Grenfell Tower block of flats in North Kensington, West London, at 00:54 BST and burned for 60 hours. Seventy-two people died, two later in hospital, with more than 70 injured and 223 escaping. It was the deadliest structural fire in the United Kingdom since the 1988 Piper Alpha oil-platform disaster and the worst UK residential fire since World War II.
Grenfell Tower is a derelict 24-storey residential tower block in North Kensington in London, England. The tower was completed in 1974 as part of the first phase of the Lancaster West Estate. The tower was named after Grenfell Road, which ran to the south of the building; the road itself was named after Field Marshal Lord Grenfell, a senior British Army officer. Most of the tower was destroyed in a severe fire on 14 June 2017.
Chalcots Estate is a council housing estate on Adelaide Road and Fellows Road in Swiss Cottage in the London Borough of Camden. It was designed by Dennis Lennon and Partners. The Chalcots Estate was built on land owned by Eton College, which is reflected in the names of the individual buildings.
Harley Facades is a British construction company that designs and installs external cladding on buildings.
The Grenfell Tower Inquiry is a British public inquiry into the Grenfell Tower fire, which killed 72 people and destroyed Grenfell Tower on 14 June 2017. It was ordered by Prime Minister Theresa May on the day following the fire.
Fellows Road is a two-lane road in the London Borough of Camden, just north of Central London. It is on the Eton College estate, a series of roads and houses built to replace the area destroyed in World War II, on land owned by Eton College. The road was originally built in 1873 and finished between 1874 and 1894, and named after the college's fellows.
On 14 June 2017, the Grenfell Tower fire broke out in the 24-storey Grenfell Tower block of flats in North Kensington, West London, at 00:54 BST; it caused 72 deaths, including those of two victims who later died in hospital. More than 70 others were injured and 223 people missing. It was the deadliest structural fire in the United Kingdom since the 1988 Piper Alpha disaster and the worst UK residential fire since the Second World War.
The United Kingdom cladding crisis, also known as the cladding scandal, is an ongoing social crisis that followed the Grenfell Tower fire of 14 June 2017 and the Bolton Cube fire of 15 November 2019. The fires revealed that large numbers of buildings had been clad in dangerously combustible materials, comprising a combination of flammable cladding and/or flammable insulation.
The Grenfell Tower Inquiry is a British public inquiry into the Grenfell Tower fire, which killed 72 people and destroyed Grenfell Tower on 14 June 2017. It was ordered by Prime Minister Theresa May on the day following the fire.
Criticism of the response to the Grenfell Tower fire primarily consisted of condemnation of issues with the emergency response and fire safety regulation practices in the UK at the time. Broader political criticism was also directed at British society, including condemnation of the response by governmental bodies and UK politicians, social divisions, deregulation issues, and poor transparency overall.
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