Fire Strategy & Legislation
There has been an increased regulatory focus on fire safety related issues for higher rise residential buildings in the UK. Whilst this may be your home, you live in a communal building that has to adopt certain strategies and processes to keep everybody in the building safe. As a leaseholder you have to comply with the regulations and the W3 Fire Strategy.
W3 has a documented fire safety strategy. It works in conjunction with the commercial units and the residential parts of the building. As we move into 2024 our building will be registered with the Health and Safety Executive and will be subject to certain inspections on a regular basis. The Greater Manchester Fire and Rescue Service also inspects the building from time to time. The W3 Board has appointed somebody to act as the Principal Accountable Person for fire safety and they require that we undertake annual inspections of our systems, equipment and processes. This is a requirement of the Building Safety Act 2022. We also need to undertake checks on your front door seals, regular fire alarm checks, regular full evacuation drills, monthly assessments of lifts and daily checks on fire risk elements such as the storage of rubbish or the blocking of fire exits.
The Principal Accountable Person is responsible in law for checking and enforcing certain obligations at W3. It is essential that everybody plays their part in ensuring that they act properly when challenged on fire safety issues. It isn't acceptable to do anything that would be considered a fire safety risk and thus place other residents at risk from fire incidents, and therefore
- Never block any fire escapes with either vehicles or rubbish
- Never store anything in the communal corridors including trip hazards like door mats. There is a bike store in the car park.
- Don't avoid evacuating when the fire alarm sounds continuously. If the fire brigade finds that residents haven't evacuated or are milling around in the building foyer we could have action taken against us
- Never store oil or petrol in cans in the car park. Barbeques are forbidden on our balconies and terraces by our insurer.
- Never tamper with the fire hose reels and the dry riser systems
- Don't leave bags of rubbish outside of the core bins
- Don't put batteries and electrical appliances into the rubbish systems
- Never change the electrical systems in your apartment without it being fully certificated
- Never tamper with the heat and smoke detectors, or sounders in the apartment as this is a communal system.
- Dont use the lifts if the fire alarm is sounding
The building has fire fighting equipment on each wing of the building. In 2022 the fire doors were checked, their fixing and fittings checked and replaced where necessary, so that fire and smoke can be contained in segments of the building should the worst happen. THe external wall cladding is being replaced now. The strategy is to 'evacuate now' when the fire alarm sounds continuously. This was changed from the "Stay Put" approach adopted before 2021. This may revert back to the original strategy once all of the fire safety critical defects such as cladding are remediated.
