Fears over fire risks

Published: 14 May, 2010

• A HOMES for Islington (HfI) spokesman is quoted as saying: “One of the things we do to reassure residents is to carry out regular fire-risk assessments”; this is not so (Tower block residents living ‘in fear’ of electrical wiring hazard on estate, May 7).
Because of HfI’s failures to address communal repairs on our estate, including the open-circuit boxes which we first reported to them as a problem in July 2009, our Tenants’ and Residents’ Association carried out its own estate inspection in early March. Our inspection report, which we emailed to HfI, highlighted a number of health and safety hazards as well as cables trailing dangerously over the fire escape balconies of Michael Cliffe House.  
We asked to see copies of HfI’s fire-risk assessments for Michael Cliffe. After initially attempting to fob us off with “the assessments are for internal use only”, they told us that a fire-risk assessment had not been carried out on the block since 2006. Only as a result of our persistent requests to see the assessments, did HfI eventually carry out a further inspection on March 23.
HfI’s inspection report notes concern about the trailing cables and many other items: the staircase doors have large gaps and are missing smoke seals and there is no emergency lighting in stairwells. Also, wet risers have been replaced with dry risers without building regulation approval (regulations say that buildings above 60 metres high, which we believe is the case with our tower block, should have wet, not dry, risers).
No evidence was found of testing the risers, which should be checked every six months and serviced annually to ensure equipment is ready for immediate use in an emergency. The list goes on. Perhaps the HfI spokesman, who considers that carrying out fire-risk assessments every four years is reassuring to high-rise tenants and thinks these issues are “minor”, would like to attend a meeting on the Finsbury estate to see if his astonishing dismissal of these serious issues is shared by residents. 
JENNY WALLACE-BIRD and SHARON HAYWARD
Co-secretaries, Finsbury Estate Tenants’ and Residents’ Association