A CITY council plan to refurbish its five tower blocks has run £650,000 over budget.

The local authority set £20m aside to refurbish Evenlode, Foresters, Hockmore, Plowman and Windrush Towers in 2016 – but other £1m work was added to replace cladding on Evenlode and Windrush Towers in Blackbird Leys after the Grenfell Tower disaster in June.

The price of all the work on all of the blocks has come to £21.65m overall because of 'additional works and costs'.

The council said it would look to recoup the costs from ‘third parties’.

Oxford City Council initially said it wanted to deliver work to the improve the ‘communal structure’ of the five tower blocks, along with improving and adding insulation, replacing windows, heating and communal electrics and lift refurbishments.

City council spokesman Mish Tullar said: “We have incurred some additional works and costs across the £20 million tower blocks refurbishment programme, which are separate to the extra £1m budgeted for recladding Windrush and Evenlode towers.

“We will be seeking to recover some of the additional £650,000 costs from third parties.”

When the works were first commissioned, the council said it wanted to ‘make enhancements to the physical appearance of the blocks’.

As a result of that, Vitrabond cladding – which was subsequently found to be flammable after Government ordered test following the Grenfell Tower disaster – was installed on Evenlode and Windrush Towers.

The material has also been used by AFC Bournemouth on a development at its Vitality Stadium, the University of Derby, Imperial College London, a Premier Inn development in Brentford, West London, and by YMCA in West Bromwich.

Other non-combustible cladding Opus was installed on Foresters and Plowman Towers and Trespa on Hockmore Tower. That cladding remains on the building.

Councillors on the city council’s housing panel will be presented with documents tracing the process which saw the cladding installed at a meeting tomorrow.

In a report, council officers conclude that there were no failings in the council’s tower blocks refurbishment plan.

All of the cladding installed on the city’s tower blocks met fire regulations when it was installed.

Evenlode and Windrush Towers in Blackbird Leys have 60 flats. Hockmore Tower, in Cowley, has 58 flats.

Plowman Tower in Marston and Foresters Tower in Wood Farm are the council's largest tower blocks. They both have 80 flats each.