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Fire chiefs call for duty holder role as property manager prosecuted following death
The National Fire Chiefs Council (NFCC) has called for a duty holder with responsibility for fire safety to be introduced through the Hackitt Review.
The fire chief membership body was responding to the outcome of a court case where a property managing agent was recently ordered to pay £40,000 following the death of a woman in a tower block fire in 2012.
Sophie Rosser, 23, died following a tower block fire in Meridian Place in east London in 2012. She lived on the fifth floor of the building and was found unconscious by firefighters. She was treated at the scene before being taken to hospital, where she later died.
London Fire Brigade (LFB) carried out an inspection of the building following the fire and found a number of serious fire safety failures. Breaches included failures in building maintenance and the fire detection system, a lack of firefighting safety equipment on site and a failure to monitor safety measures.
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Parc Properties Management Limited (PPML), the managing agent for Meridian Place Management Limited, was sentenced at Southwark Crown Court on 19 March, after pleading guilty to two offences under the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order (RRO) 2005.
Vance Miller, who completed a fire risk assessment for PPML at Meridian Place in 2008, also pleaded guilty to one offence under the RRO.
The NFCC welcomed the LFB’s work on a “complex investigation” that led to the successful prosecution.
Inside Housing understands Dame Judith Hackitt is considering a recommendation to introduce a dutyholder, who would have ultimate responsibility for fire safety in a building. This could be the building owner, but in situations where the ownership of the building is complex it would be someone based in the UK. The dutyholder would need to work with residents, including leaseholders, and a regulator would oversee their work to ensure they are meeting their responsibilities.
In a recent interview with Inside Housing Nicholas Coombe, vice chair of the protection arm of the NFCC, cited the Sophie Rosser case as an example of the difficulty fire services can have in identifying who is responsible for fire safety in privately owned buildings.
He said: “The issue with private landlords is from a responsible person point of view. If you take a social housing block of flats at say Bromley Council, it’s very clear Bromley Council is the responsible person, whether there are leaseholders in there or council tenants. But when you get a private block you can have the owner, you can have the freeholder, you can have a management company and, in some cases, bits of the building are owned by different companies, even down to certain corridors or even lift shafts.”
Mark Hardingham, chair of the NFCC’s protection and business safety committee, said: “NFCC has been clear in its submission to the Independent Review of Building Regulations by Dame Judith Hackitt that a clear ‘duty holder’ is required to ensure those who do not take their fire safety responsibilities seriously are easily identifiable and can be dealt with appropriately through the courts.”
