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LGA withdraws influential fire safety guidance from website
The Local Government Association (LGA) has removed influential guidance on fire safety in blocks of flats from its website.
Produced in 2011 at the request of government and with input from several bodies, the document, titled ‘Fire safety in purpose-built blocks of flats’, was a key text for social landlords and other organisations involved in residential fire safety for a decade.
It was strongly supportive of the “stay put” principle, which has come under scrutiny since the devastating Grenfell Tower fire in June 2017.
But the LGA said it was withdrawing the guidance “as changes in government policy and regulation mean that it is now out of date”.
The councils’ representative body had already distanced itself from the guidance, including a caveat on the relevant webpage warning that the 192-page document was “no longer comprehensive” in light of changes to building regulations since Grenfell.
It said it continued to host the guidance on its website at the government’s request while raising the need for an updated version, which is expected to surface later this year.
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However, the LGA decided to remove the document last week following the British Standards Institution’s (BSI) withdrawal of new guidance on fire risk assessments last month amid a legal challenge from families bereaved by the Grenfell disaster.
Both the 2011 guidance and the new BSI guidance had suggested that personal emergency evacuation plans (PEEPs) for residents with disabilities are not usually necessary.
This contradicts a recommendation from the Grenfell Tower Inquiry’s phase one report that “the owner and manager of every residential high-rise be legally required to prepare personal emergency evacuation plans for all residents whose ability to self-evacuate may be compromised”.
The primary author of both pieces of guidance is prominent fire safety consultant Colin Todd, who is set to appear as an expert witness at the Grenfell Tower Inquiry analysing the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea’s actions.
A Home Office response last month to a fire safety consultation signalling policy changes moving away from advice in the 2011 guidance is also understood to have informed the LGA’s decision to remove it.
“The LGA is no longer hosting this guide as changes in government policy and regulation mean that it is now out of date and we do not possess the in-house fire safety expertise necessary to amend it,” a spokesperson for the LGA said.
“The government response to the fire safety consultation indicated a change in policy from the advice in the guide.
“As a result the LGA didn’t consider it appropriate to continue to host advice for its members that effectively told them to pursue a course which was likely to be at odds with the law within a year or two.
“The government is currently producing a new version which we anticipate will be available later this year.”
The guidance is still hosted on the websites of several fire services.
Former communities secretary Eric Pickles said the government was considering whether the 2011 document needed revising following the inquests into the 2009 Lakanal House fire in which six people died, but no action was taken.
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