A Nottinghamshire farmer and businessman has received a bill of £100,000 after pleading guilty to a variety of fire safety offences.  According to Nottinghamshire Fire Service he had been putting the visiting public at risk for more than two years.

He has pleaded guilty to 6 charges relating to deficiencies in the fire risk assessment, means of escape and fire alarms – he also failed to comply with Enforcement Notices for two properties being rented out as holiday accommodation.

Visits were made in 2010 and 2012 to assess the works required – however advice provided by the Fire Protection Officers was not taken, and works required were not carried out. The defendant ignored the advise of the officers and ignored repeated warnings. The Judge added that the defendant had deliberately and persistently run risks with the lives of others.

The fine was £22,000 and costs are £78,000.

November 2014

A landlord from Leicestershire is due to be sentenced in September 2014 after pleading guilty at Leicester Crown Court of 7 charges under the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005.

A fire broke out in his property which contained 11 bedsits following which it was found that there was no emergency lighting or working smoke alarms.  A fire extinguisher had not been maintained for 25 years.  There was no suitable fir risk assessment or arrangements for safe evacuation. Fire doors were either missing or jammed open. Car parts and tyres were stored in the basement.

Thankfully all residents got out of the property.

Not surprisingly the landlord was not licensed to run such a property and was not on the fire register.

None of the rooms in the nine-bedroom house, in Hatfield, Hertfordshire, had fire doors.

Although there were fire extinguishers present at the property, they were all out of date.

The local council described the property as high risk due to tenants only staying for a brief period and not knowing each other; the combination of factors making the property high risk particularly in the event of a fire.

We say there is no reason why extinguishers should be out of date – an annual service by a competent company such as ourselves is all that’s needed. And there is plenty of advice available of the fitting of effective fire doors.

We would like to wish our engineer Mark all the very best for a long and happy future with his new wife Emma.  They celebrated their wedding in July under the beautiful blue skies of Lanzarote with their family and had a wonderful day and honeymoon.

Two business in Tameside have been convicted of flouting fire safety regulations at their premises, putting employees at risk of being trapped inside in the event of a fire.

Total fines of £13,000 were handed out and the costs of the case at £6,000 also have to be met

The prosecutions followed inspections which found in the first premises a rear fire exit covered with a roller shutter and the key broken in the lock.  The escape route to the exit exceeded the maximum (search) distance of 25m with the route being cluttered with stock, boxes were piled haphazardly which could have caused persons to be trapped and helped the fire to develop quicker.

The second premises owner was found guilty of failing to make a suitable and sufficient fire risk assessment.  The Director pleaded guilty to  three offences.  At the inspection of these premises which led to the prosecution locked and blocked fire exits were also found, and mattresses were stored all over.  The fire alarm had not been tested.

The Head of Fire Protection at Greater Manchester Fire and Rescue service said

“There is no excuse for blocking and locking fire exits and we will continue to prosecute businesses who put their workers or members of the public at risk.  A bit of thought and common sense would have saved these business money”

Following breaches of fire safety regulations a landlord from Bury has been fined £17,000 and orders to pay Greater Manchester Fire and Rescue Service £2,223 in costs and a £120 victim surcharge following a hearing on June 2 2014 at Bury and Rochdale Magistrates Court.

Mr Khan pleaded guilty of five offences under the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005 at a house of multiple occupancy in Bury.

Amongst the breaches

• Combustibles stored in the hall an don landings, which would have helped a fire take hold and spread quicker
• The fire alarm was faulty and switched off
• A battery operated smoke detector was situated incorrectly and could not be heard in the bedsits
• Holes in the ceilings meant fire would have spread quicker
• No fire doors were present
• A lack of emergency lighting

Apparently Mr Khan had not realised the house was classified as a house of multiple occupancy, but he did accept that the property was inadequate.

Mr Khan was fined £3,400 for each offence.  The property has since had works carried out.

GMFRS commented “The cost of making this property safe would have been a fraction of the cost Mr Khan has to pay now, and he has a criminal record”

This surely must come as a warning to landlords and premises owners that ignorance of the Reform Order will no longer be tolerated as a reason or excuse for failings.

With fires being a big concern in the fire safety industry presently, we feel any prosecution for firms breaching any licensing or safety conditions should be highlighted in the hope that others will take notice and improve conditions on their sites.

Oakham Environmental Waste and Recycling Centre ran a skip business and waste transfer station in Kingswinford in the West Midlands. The Planning Inspectorate have dismissed their appeal against the revocation of their Environmental Permit by the Environment agency.

Since January 2011 when the licence was transferred to them a number of permit condition breaches were found, and the Environment Agency revoked the licence in May 2013.  Breaches included; no technically competent manager, waste tipped and stored outside the appropriate bunkers and wast tipped outside the permit area. The Company failed to comply with a series of enforcement notices and due to lack of action from them a number of waste fires occurred.

Following the appeal rejection, the Company now has six weeks in which to remove all waste from the Midlands site.

The Environment Agency is cracking down on poorly performing sites by requiring operators to cease operations if they are not competent to run the sites properly.

More information can be found on source: Defra

A tyre reclamation firm in Sheffield has been fined £30,000 after it was prosecuted for breaching safety laws in 2013.

The premises in Attercliffe suffered a fire in June 2013 which took 3 fire engines several hours to tackle and in which one of the firm’s workers was injured.

South Yorkshire Fire and Rescue’s Technical Fire Safety department investigated and found that the Company did not have a suitable or sufficient risk assessment in place and therefore staff were being placed at risk because of a lack of training and equipment.

The company pleaded guilty to 6 charges and were handed fines of £5,000 per charge.

Another case of where failing to comply with the law has meant heavy penalties, and unfortunately an injury. The importance of carrying out your fire safety duties effectively cannot be stressed enough – or indeed made clearer by the weight of these prosecutions.

Members of staff at Morven House care home in Croydon put the safety of its 17 elderly residents at risk by failing to adhere to fire safety regulations.

Inspectors found “truly shocking” conditions including obstructed fire exits, an out of date fire risk assessment and an inadequate fire detection system when they investigated in February 2013.

In May 2014 the owner was at Croydon Crown Court where the company pleaded guilty to 5 offences under The Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order.  They were fined £45,000 and ordered to pay full court costs of £23,488. At the time 7 enforcement notices had been issued to them by the Fire Service, including a lack of preventative and protective measures to reduce fire risk and no safe evacuation route.

London Fire Brigade released figures which reveal that there are 10 fires every week in care homes around London – one third of those who dies in accidental  fires in the previous year were receiving care.

According to research recently published by the Government the number of fires attended in the UK by the authorities are ‘noticeably fewer’ in 2012/2013.

487,000 fires or false alarms were attended in the is period, as opposed to 586,00 in the previous period – a significant reduction of 17%. Furthermore these figures show a reduction of almost 50% than 10 years ago.

Of the 487,00 attendances fires accounted for 192,600 (29% lower than last year) and false alarms made up the rest – which is 6% lower.

The number of fatalities at 350 is the lowest its has been in the last 50 years.

Most of the fires happened in domestic premises; 22,500 incidents occurred in premises such as shops, pubs and cafes and industrial manufacturing premises classed in the report as other buildings.

These figures although reducing show the importance of having a suitable means of warning and detection installed.  As ever it is imperative that they are in full working order – a maintained fire alarm system is less likely to false alarm.

They also confirm the importance of having an escape plan and a suitable Fire Risk Assessment in place.

2nd June 2014